IMAGINATION AND FANG 



OE, SELECTIONS 

FROM THE ENGLISH POETS, 

jLUSTRATIVE OF THOSE FIRST REQUISITES OF THEIR ART ; WITH MARKINGS 

OF THE BEST PASSAGES, CRITICAL NOTICES OF THE WRITERS, 

AND AN ESSAY IN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION 

"WHAT IS POETEY?" 




LONDON: 
SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15, WATERLOO PLACE. 

1871. 



By TramfW /2? I 

Ag907 




PREFACE. 



This book is intended for all lovers of poetry and the 

sister arts, but more especially for those of the most 

poetical sort, and most especially for the youngest and the 

oldest : for as the former may incline to it for information's 

sake, the latter will perhaps not refuse it their good-will 

for the sake of old favourites. The Editor has often 

wished for such a book himself; and as nobody will make 

it for him, he has made it for others. 

It was suggested by the approbation which the readers 

of a periodical work bestowed' on some extracts from the 

poets, commented, and marked ivith italics, on a principle 

of co-perusal, as though the Editor were reading the 

passages in their company. Those readers wished to 

have more such extracts ; and here, if they are still in the 

mind, they now possess them. The remarks on one of 

the poems that formed a portion of the extracts {The Eve 

of Saint Agnes) are repeated in the present volume. All 

a—2 



IV PREFACE. 

the rest of the matter contributed by him is new. He 
does not expect, of course, that every reader will agree 
with the preferences of particular lines or passages, 
intimated by the italics. Some will think them too 
numerous ; some perhaps too few ; many who chance to 
take up the book, may wish there had been none at all ; 
but these will have the goodness to recollect what has just 
been stated, — that the plan was suggested by others who 
desired them. The Editor, at any rate, begs to be con- 
sidered as having marked the passages in no spirit of 
dictation to any one, much less of disparagement to all 
the admirable passages not marked. If he assumed any- 
thing at all (beyond what is implied in the fact of 
imparting experience), it was the probable mutual pleasure 
of the reader his companion ; just as in reading out loud, 
one instinctively increases one's emphasis here and there, 
and implies a certain accordance of enjoyment on the part 
of the hearers. In short, all poetic readers are expected 
to have a more than ordinary portion of sympathy, 
especially with those who take pains to please them ; and 
the Editor desires no larger amount of it than he grate- 
fully gives to any friend who is good enough to read out 
similar passages to himself. 

The object of the book is threefold ; — to present 
the public with some of the finest passages in English 



PBEFACE. V 

poetry, so marked and commented ; — to furnish such an 
account, in an Essay, of the nature and requirements of 
poetry, as may enable readers in general to give an answer 
on those points to themselves and others; — and to show, 
throughout the greater part of the "volume, what sort of 
poetry is to he considered as poetry of the most poetical 
kind, or such as exhibits the imagination and fancy in a 
state of predominance, undisputed by interests of another 
sort. Poetry, therefore, is not here in its compound state, 
great or otherwise (except incidentally in the Essay), but 
in its element, like an essence distilled. All the greatest 
poetry includes that essence, but the essence does not 
present itself in exclusive combination with the greatest 
form of poetry. It varies in that respect from the most 
tremendous to the most playful effusions, and from 
imagination to fancy through all their degrees; — from 
Homer and Dante, to Coleridge and Keats ; from Shak- 
speare in King Lear, to Shakspeare himself in the Mid- 
summer Night's Dream ; from Spenser's Fairy Queen 
to the Castle of Indolence; nay, from Ariel in the Tempest, 
to his somewhat presumptuous namesake in the Rape of 
the Lock. And passages, both from Thomson's delight- 
ful allegory, and Pope's paragon of mock-heroics, would 
have been found in this volume, but for that intentional, 

artificial imitation, even in the former, which removes 

a 3 



VI PREFACE. 

them at too great a distance from trie highest sources of 
inspiration. 

With the great poet of the Fairy Queen the Editor 
has taken special pains to make readers in general better 
acquainted; and in furtherance of this purpose he has 
exhibited many of his best passages in remarkable relation 
to the art of the Painter. 

For obvious reasons no living writer is included ; and 
some, lately deceased, do not come within the plan. The 
omission will not be thought invidious in an Editor, who 
has said more of his contemporaries than most men ; and 
who would gladly give specimens of the latter poets in 
future volumes. 

One of the objects indeed of this preface is to state 
that should the public evince a willingness to have more 
such books, the Editor would propose to give them, in 
succession, corresponding volumes of the Poetry of Action 
and Passion (Narrative and Dramatic Poetry), from 
Chaucer to Campbell (here mentioned because he is the 
latest deceased poet) ; — the Poetry of Contemplation, from 
Surrey to Campbell; — the Poetry of Wit and Humour, 
from Chaucer to Byron ; and the Poetry of Song, or 
Lyrical Poetry, from Chaucer again (see in his Works 
his admirable and only song, beginning 

Hide, Absalom, thy gilded tresses clear), 



PKEFACE. Vll 

to Campbell again, and Burns, and O'Keefe. These 
volumes, if he is not mistaken, would present the Public 
with the only selection, hitherto made, of none hut genuine 
poetry ; and he would take care, that it should be un- 
objectionable in every other respect. * 
Kensington, Sept. 10, 1844. 

* While closing the Essay on Poetry, a Mend lent me Cole- 
ridge's BiograpTiia Literaria, which I had not seen for many years, 
and which I mention, partly to notice a coincidence at page 38 of 
the Essay, not otherwise worth observation ; and partly to do what I 
can towards extending the acquaintance of the public with a book 
containing masterly expositions of the art of poetry. 



Note. — It is much to be regretted that the Author's ill-health 
prevented him from completing his design ; Wit and Humour being 
the only other volume of the intended series. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGS 

AN ANSWEB TO THE QUESTION "WHAT IS POETRY?" 1 

SELECTIONS FROM SPENSER, WITH CRITICAL NOTICE 62 

ARCHIMAGO'S HERMITAGE AND THE HOUSE OF MORPHEUS 68 

THE CAVE OE MAMMON AND GARDEN OE PROSERPINE 78 

A GALLERY OF PICTURES EROM SPENSER 91 

(Spenser considered as the Poet of the Painters.) 

CHARISSA ; OR CHARITY 97 

HOPE 98 

CUPID USURPING THE THRONE OE JUPITER 99 

MARRIAGE PROCESSION OF THE THAMES AND MEDWAY 99 

SIR GUYON BINDING FUROR 100 

UNA (OR FAITH IN DISTRESS) 101 

JUPITER AND MAIA 104 

NIGHT AND THE WITCH DUESSA 104 

VENUS IN SEARCH OF CUPID, COMING TO DIANA 106 

MAY 108 

AN ANGEL WITH A PILGRIM AND A FAINTING KNIGHT 109 

AURORA AND TITHONUS Ill 

THE BRIDE AT THE ALTAR Ill 

A NYMPH BATHING 112 

THE CAVE OF DESPAIR 113 

A KNIGHT IN BRIGHT ARMOUR LOOKING INTO A CAVE 114 

MALBECCO SEES HELLENORE DANCING WITH THE SATYRS 115 



X CONTENTS. 

PAGE 
LANDSCAPE, WITH DAMSELS CONVEYING- A WOUNDED SQUIRE ON 

HIS HORSE 116 

THE NYMPHS AND GRACES DANCING TO A SHEPHERD'S • PIPE ; 

OR, APOTHEOSIS OF A POET'S MISTRESS 116 

A PLUME OF FEATHERS AND AN ALMOND-TREE 118 

ENCHANTED MUSIC 1 19 

SELECTIONS FROM MARLOWE, WITH CRITICAL NOTICE 121 

THE JEW OF MALTA'S IDEA OF WEALTH 126 

A VISION OF HELEN 128 

MYTHOLOGY AND COURT AMUSEMENTS 129 

BEAUTY BEYOND EXPRESSION 129 

THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE 130 

SELECTIONS FROM SHAKSPEARE, WITH CRITICAL NOTICE 132 

WHOLE STORY OF THE TEMPEST 135 

MACBETH AND THE WITCHES 144 

THE QUARREL OF OBERON AND TITANIA 150 

THE BRIDAL HOUSE BLESSED BY THE FAIRIES 160 

LOVERS AND MUSIC 162 

ANTONY AND THE CLOUDS 169 

YOUNG WARRIORS 169 

IMOGEN IN BED 171 

SELECTIONS FROM BEN JONSON, WITH CRITICAL NOTICE 173 

TO CYNTHIA; — THE MOON 175 

THE LOVE-MAKING OF LUXURY 176 

TOWERING SENSUALITY 177 

THE WITCH - 179 

A MEETING OF WITCHES 180 

A CATCH OF SATYRS 183 

SELECTIONS FROM BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER, WITH 

CRITICAL NOTICE 184 

MELANCHOLY 186 



CONTENTS. XI 

PAGE 
A SATYR PRESENTS A BASKET OF FRUIT TO THE FAITHFUL 

SHEPHERDESS 18S 

A SPOT FOR LOVE-TALES 190 

MORNING 191 

THE POWER OF LOVE 



191 



INVOCATION TO SLEEP 



193 



SELECTIONS FROM MIDDLETON, DECKER, AND WEBSTER, 

WITH CRITICAL NOTICE 195 

FLIGHT OF WITCHES 200 

THE CHRISTIAN LADY AND THE ANGEL 203 

LADIES DANCING 205 

APRIL AND WOMEN'S TEARS 206 

DEATH 206 

PATIENCE 206 

A WICKED DREAM 208 

NATURAL DEATH 209 

FUNERAL DIRGE 209 

DISSIMULATION 210 

BEAUTEOUS MORAL EXAMPLE 210 

UNLOVELINESS OF FROWNING 210 

SELECTIONS FROM MILTON, WITH CRITICAL NOTICE 211 

satan's recovery from his downfall 214 

the fallen angels gathered again to war 215 

VULCAN 218 

THE FALLEN ANGELS HEARD RISING FROM COUNCIL 218 

SATAN ON THE WING FOR EARTH 218 

THE MEETING OF SATAN AND DEATH 219 

l'allegro 221 

IL PENSEROSO- 229 

LYCIDAS 236 

COMUS THE SORCERER 245 



Xll CONTENTS. 

FAGS 

SELECTIONS FROM COLERIDGE, WITH CRITICAL NOTICE 249 

LOYE ; OR, GENEVIEVE 256 

KUBLA KHAN 259 

YOUTH AND AGE 262 

THE HEATHEN DIVINITIES MERGED INTO ASTROLOGY 263 

WORK WITHOUT HOPE 264 

SELECTIONS FROM SHELLEY, WITH CRITICAL NOTICE 265 

TO A SKYLARK 269 

A GARISH DAY 276 

CONTEMPLATION OF VIOLENCE 276 

A ROCK AND A CHASM 277 

LOVELINESS INEXPRESSIBLE 277 

EXISTENCE IN SPACE , 278 

DEVOTEDNESS UNREQUTRING 278 

TO A LADY WITH A GUITAR , 279 

MUSIC, MEMORY, AND LOVE „. 282 

SELECTIONS FROM KEATS, WITH CRITICAL NOTICE 283 

THE EVE OF ST. AGNES 288 

LONELY SOUNDS 308 

ORION 308 

CIRCE AND HER VICTIMS 308 

A BETTER ENCHANTRESS IMPRISONED IN THE SHAPE OF A 

SERPENT 309 

SATURN DETHRONED 309 

THE VOICE OF A MELANCHOLY GODDESS SPEAKING TO SATURN. 310 

A FALLEN GOD 310 

OTHER TITANS FALLEN 311 

ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE .". 311 

SONNET ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER 314 




AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION 

WHAT IS POETRY? 



INCLUDING 



REMAKES ON VERSIFICATION 



Poetry, strictly and artistically so called, that is to say, 
considered not merely as poetic feeling, which is more or 
less shared by all the world, but as the operation of that 
feeling, such as we see it in the poet's book, is the utter- 
ance of a passion for truth, beauty, and power, embodying 
and illustrating its conceptions by imagination and fancy, 
and modulating its language on the principle of variety in 
uniformity. Its means are whatever the universe contains ; 
and its ends, pleasure and exaltation. Poetry stands 
between nature and convention, keeping alive among us 
the enjoyment of the external and the spiritual world : it 
has constituted the most enduring fame of nations ; and, 
next to Love and Beauty, which are its parents, is the 
greatest proof to man of the pleasure to be found in all 
things, and of the probable riches of infinitude. 

1 



2 AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION 

Poetry is a passion,'" because it seeks the deepest 
impressions ; and because it must undergo, in order to 
convey them. 

It is a passion for truth, because without truth the 
impression would be false or defective. 

It is a passion for beauty, because its office is to exalt 
and refine by means of pleasure, and because beauty is 
nothing but the loveliest form of pleasure. 

It is a passion for power, because power is impression 
triumphant, whether over the poet, as desired by himself, 
or over the reader, as affected by the poet. 

It embodies and illustrates its impressions by imagina- 
tion, or images of the objects of which it treats, and other 
images brought in to throw light on those objects, in order 
that it may enjoy and impart the feeling of their truth in 
its utmost conviction and affluence. 

It illustrates them by fancy, which is a lighter play of 
imagination, or the feeling of analogy coming short 
of seriousness, in order that it may laugh with what 
it loves, and show how it can decorate it with fairy 
ornament. 

It modulates what it utters, because in running the 
whole round of beauty it must needs include beauty of 
sound; and because, in the height of its enjoyment, it 
must show the perfection of its triumph, and make diffi- 
culty itself become part of its facility and joy. 

And lastly, Poetry shapes this modulation into uni- 
formity for its outline, and variety for its parts, because it 

* Passio, suffering in a good sense, — ardent subjection of one's- 
self to emotion. 



WHAT IS POETRY? 3 

thus realizes the last idea of beauty itself, which includes 
the charm of diversity within the flowing round of habit 
and ease. 

Poetry is imaginative passion. The quickest and 
subtlest test of the possession of its essence is in expres- 
sion ; the variety of things to be expressed shows the 
amount of its resources; and the continuity of the song 
completes the evidence of its strength and greatness. He 
who has thought, feeling, expression, imagination, action, 
character, and continuity, all in the largest amount and 
highest degree, is the greatest poet. 

Poetry includes whatsoever of painting can be made \^ 
visible to the mind's eye, and whatsoever of music can be 
conveyed by sound and proportion without singing or 
instrumentation. But it far surpasses those divine arts in 
suggestiveness, range, and intellectual wealth ; — the first, 
in expression of thought, combination of images, and the 
triumph over space and time ; the second, in all that can 
be done by speech, apart from the tones and modulations 
of pure sound. Painting and music, however, include 
all those portions of the gift of poetry that can be 
expressed and heightened by' the visible and melodious. 
Painting, in a certain apparent manner, is things them- 
selves ; music, in a certain audible manner, is their 
very emotion and grace. Music and painting are proud 
to be related to poetry, and poetry loves and is proud 
of them. 

Poetry begins where matter of fact or of science ceases 
to be merely such, and to exhibit a further truth ; that is 
to say, the connexion it has with the world of emotion. 



4 AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION 

and its power to produce imaginative pleasure. Inquiring 
of a gardener, for instance, what flower it is we see yonder, 
lie answers, "A lily." This is matter of fact. The botanist 
pronounces it to be of the order of " Hexandria monogynia." 
This is matter of science. It is the " lady " of the garden, 
says Spenser ; and here we begin to have a poetical sense 
of its fairness and grace. It is 

The plant and flower of light, 

says Ben Jon son ; and poetry then shows us the beauty of 
the flower in all its mystery and splendour. 

If it be asked, how we know perceptions like these to 
be true, the answer is, by the fact of their existence, — by 
the consent and delight of poetic readers. And as feeling 
is the earliest teacher, and perception the only final 
proof of things the most demonstrable by science, so the 
remotest imaginations of the poets may often be found to 
have the closest connexion with matter of fact; perhaps 
might always be so, if the subtlety of our perceptions were 
a match for the causes of them. Consider this image of 
Ben Jonson's — of a lily being the flower of light. Light, 
undecomposed, is white ; and as the lily is white, and 
light is white, and whiteness itself is nothing but light, 
the two things, so far, are not merely similar, but identical. 
A poet might add, by an analogy drawn from the con- 
nexion of light and colour, that there is a " golden dawn " 
issuing out of the white lily, in the rich yellow of the 
stamens. I have no desire to push this similarity farther 
than it may be worth. Enough has been stated to show 
that, in poetical as in other analogies, " the same feet of 



WHAT IS POETKY? 5 

Nature/' as Bacon says, may be seen " treading in different 
paths ; " and that the most scornful, that is to say, dullest 
disciple of fact, should be cautious how he betrays the 
shallowness of his philosophy by discerning no poetry in 
its depths. 

But the poet is far from dealing only with these subtle U^ 
and analogical truths. Truth of every kind belongs to 
him, provided it can bud into any kind of beauty, or is 
capable of being illustrated and impressed by the poetic 
faculty. Nay, the simplest truth is often so beautiful 
and impressive of itself, that one of the greatest proofs of 
his genius consists in his leaving it to stand alone, illus- 
trated by nothing but the light of its own tears or smiles, 
its own wonder, might, or playfulness. Hence the com- 
plete effect of many a simple passage in our old English 
ballads and romances, and of the passionate sincerity 
in general of the greatest early poets, such as Homer 
and Chaucer, who flourished before the existence of a 
" literary world," and were not perplexed by a heap of 
notions and opinions, or by doubts how emotion ought 
to be expressed. The greatest of their successors never 
write equally to the purpose, except when they can 
dismiss everything from their minds but the like simple 
truth. In the beautiful poem of Sir Eger, Sir Graham, 
and Sir Gray-Steel (see it in Ellis's Specimens, or 
Laing's Early Metrical Tales), a knight thinks himself 
disgraced in the eyes of his mistress: — 

Sir Eger said, " If it be so, 
Then wot I well I must forego 
Love-liking, and manhood, all clean?." 
The water rustid out of his een ! 



b AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION 

Sir Gray- Steel is killed : — ■ 

Gray- Steel. into his death thus thraws (throes ?) 
He waiters (welters, — throws himself about) and the 

grass wp draws ; 
* * >;< * * 

A little while then lay he still 
{Friends that him saw, liked full ill) 
And hied into his armour bright. 

The abode of Chaucer's Reve, or Steward, in the 
Canterbury Tales, is painted in two lines which nobody 
ever wished longer : — 

His wonning (dwelling) was full fair upon an heath, 
With greeny trees yshadowed was liis place. 

Every one knows the words of Lear, " most matter-of- 
fact, most melancholy : " 

Pray do not mock me : 
I am a very foolish fond old man, 
Fourscore and upward : 

Not an hour more, nor less ; and, to deal plainly, 
I fear, I am not in my perfect mind. 

It is thus, by exquisite pertinence, melody, and the 
implied power of writing with exuberance, if need be, that 
beauty and truth become identical in poetry, and that 
pleasure, or at the very worst, a balm in our tears, is 
drawn out of pain. 

It is a great and rare thing, and shows a lovely imagin- 
ation, when the poet can write a commentary, as it were, 
of his own, on such sufficing passages of nature, and be 
thanked for the addition. There is an instance of this 
kind in Warner, an old Elizabethan poet, than which I 
know nothing sweeter in the world. He is speaking 



WHAT IS POETRY? 7 

of Fair Rosamond, and of a blow given her by Queen 

Eleanor : 

With that she dash'd her on the lips, ' 

So dyed double red : 
Hard was the heart that gave the blow, 

Soft were those lips that bled. 

There are different kinds and degrees of imagination, 
some of them necessary to the formation of eYery true 
poet, and all of them possessed by the greatest. Perhaps 
they may be enumerated as follows : — First, that which 
presents to the mind any object or circumstance in every- 
day life ; as when we imagine a man holding a sw r ord, or 
looking out of a window; — Second, that which presents 
real, but not every-day circumstances ; as King Alfred 
tending the loaves, or Sir Philip Sidney giving up the 
w T ater to the dying soldier ; — -Third, that which combines 
character and events directly imitated from real life, with 
imitative realities of its own invention ; as the probable 
parts of the histories of Priam and Macbeth, or what may 
be called natural fiction as distinguished from super- 
natural ; — Fourth, that which conjures up things and 
events not to be found in nature ; as Homer's gods, 
and Shakspeare's witches, enchanted horses and spears, 
Ariosto's hippogriff, &c. ; — Fifth, that which, in order to 
illustrate or aggravate one image, introduces another : 
sometimes in simile, as when Homer compares Apollo 
descending in his wrath at noon-day to the coming of 
night-time ; sometimes in metaphor, or simile comprised 
in a word, as in Milton's " motes that people the sun- 
beams ; " sometimes in concentrating into a word the 
main history of any person or thing, past or even future, 



8 AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION 

as in the "starry Galileo" of Byron, and that ghastly 
foregone conclusion of the epithet " murdered " applied to 
the yet living victim in Keats's story from Boccaccio, — 

So the two brothers and their murder d man 
Rode towards fair Florence ; — 

sometimes in the attribution of a certain representative 
quality which makes one circumstance stand for others ; 
as in Milton's grey-fly winding its " sultry horn," which 
epithet contains the heat of a summer's day ; — Sixth, that 
which reverses this process, and makes a variety of cir- 
cumstances take colour from one, like nature seen with 
jaundiced or glad eyes, or under the influence of storm or 
sunshine; as when in Lycidas, or the Greek pastoral 
poets, the flowers and the flocks are made to sympathize 
with a man's death; or, in the Italian poet, the river 
flowing by the sleeping Angelica seems talking of love — 

Parea che 1' erba le fiorisse intorno, 
E a" amor ragionasse quella riva ! — 

— Orlando Innamorato, canto iii. 

or in the voluptuous homage paid to the sleeping Imogen 
by the very light in the chamber and the reaction of her 
own beauty upon itself; or in the " witch element " of the 
tragedy of Macbeth and the May-day night of Faust ; — 
Seventh, and last, that which by a single expression, 
apparently of the vaguest kind, not only meets but sur- 
passes in its effect the extremest force of the most particular 
description ; as in that exquisite passage of Coleridge's 
Christabel, where the unsuspecting object of the witch's 
malignity is bidden to go to bed : — 



WHAT IS POETRY? 1) 

Quoth Christabel, So let it be ! 
And as the lady bade, did she. 
Her gentle limbs did she undress, 
And lay down in her loveliness ; — 

a perfect verse surely, both for feeling and music. The 
very smoothness and gentleness of the limbs is in the 
series of the letter Vb. 

I am aware of nothing of the kind surpassing that most 
lovely inclusion of physical beauty in moral, neither can 
I call to mind any instances of the imagination that 
turns accompaniments into accessories, superior to those I 
have alluded to. Of the class of comparison, one of the 
most touching (many a tear must it have drawn from 
parents and lovers) is in a stanza which has been copied 
into the Friar of Orders Grey, out of Beaumont and 
Fletcher : — 

Weep no more, lady, weep no more, 

Thy sorrow is in vain ; 
For violets pluck' d the sweetest showers 

Will ne'er make grow again. 

And Shakspeare and Milton abound in the very grandest ; 
such as Antony's likening his changing fortunes to the 
cloud-rack ; Lear's appeal to the old age of the heavens ; 
Satan's appearance in the horizon, like a fleet "hanging 
in the clouds ; " and the comparisons of him with the 
comet and the eclipse. Nor unworthy of this glorious 
company, for its extraordinary combination of delicacy 
and vastness, is that enchanting one of Shelley's in the 
Adonais : — 

Life, like a dome of many- coloured glass, 
Stains the white radiance of eternity. 



10 



AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION 



I multiply these particulars in order to impress upon the 
reader's mind the great importance of imagination in 
all its phases, as a constituent part of the highest poetic 
faculty. 

v/ The happiest instance I rememher of imaginative 
metaphor is Shakspeare's moonlight " sleeping " on a 
bank ; but half his poetry may be said to be made up of 
it, metaphor indeed being the common coin of discourse. 
Of imaginary creatures none, out of the pale of mythology 
and the East, are equal, perhaps, in point of invention, 
to Shakspeare's Ariel and Caliban ; though poetry may 
grudge to prose the discovery of a Winged Woman, 
especially such as she has been described by her inventor 
in the story of Peter Wilkins ; and in point of treatment, 
the Mammon and Jealousy of Spenser, some of the 
monsters in Dante, particularly his Nimrod, his inter - 
changements of creatures into one another, and (if I am 
not presumptuous in anticipating what I think will be the 
verdict of posterity) the Witch in Coleridge's Christabel, 
may rank even with the creations of Shakspeare. It may 
be doubted, indeed, whether Shakspeare had bile and 
nightmare enough in him to have thought of such detest- 
able horrors as those of the interchanging adversaries (now 
serpent, now man), or even of the huge, half-blockish 
enormity of Nimrod, — in Scripture, the " mighty hunter " 
and builder of the tower of Babel, — in Dante, a tower of a 
man in his own person, standing with some of his brother 
giants up to the middle in a pit in hell, blowing a horn to 
which a thunder-clap is a whisper, and hallooing after 
Dante and his guide in the jargon of a lost tongue ! The 



WHAT IS POETRY? 11 

transformations are too odious to quote ; but of the tower- 
ing giant we cannot refuse ourselves the "fearful joy" of 
a specimen. It was twilight, Dante tells us, and he and 
his guide Yirgil were silently pacing through one of the 
dreariest regions of hell, when the sound of a tremendous 
horn made him turn all his attention to the spot from 
which it came. He there discovered, through the dusk, 
what seemed to be the towers of a city. Those are no 
towers, said his guide; they are giants, standing up to the 
middle in one of these circular pits : 

Come quando la nebbia si dissipa, 

Lo sguardo a poco a poco raffigura 

Cio clie cela il vapor," clie 1' aere stipa ; 
Cosi forando 1' aura grossa e scura, 

Phi e phi appressando in ver la sponda, 

Fuggemi errore, e giungemi paura : 
Perocclie come in su la cerchia tonda 

Montereggion di torri si corona ; 

Cosi la proda, che il pozzo circonda, 
Torreggiavan di mezza la persona 

Gli orribili giganti, cui minaccia 

Giove del cielo ancora, quando tuona : 
Ed io scorgeva gia d' alcun la faccia, 

Le spalle, e il petto, e del ventre gran parte, 

E per le coste giii amoo le braccia. 
* * * * 

La faccia sua mi parea lunga e grossa, 

Come la pina di San Pietro a Roma : 

E a sua proporzione eran le altr' ossa. 

H 4 ^ 5f< ;« 

" Ptafel mai amecli zabi alini ! " 

Comincio a gridar la fiera bocca, 
Cui non si convenien phi dolci salmi. 
E il Duca mio ver lui : " Anima sciocca ! 
Tienti col corno, e con quel ti disfoga, 
Quand' ira o altra passion ti tocca. 



12 AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION 

Cercati al collo, e troverai la soga 
Che il tien legato, o anima confusa, 
E vedi lui clie il gran petto ti doga." 

Poi disse a me : " Egli stesso s' accusa : 
Questi e Nembrotto, per lo cui mal coto 
Pure un linguaggio nel mondo non s' usa. 

Lasciamlo stare, e non parliamo a voto : 
Che cosi e a lui ciascun linguaggio, 
Come il suo ad altrui, ch' a nullo e noto." 

— Inferno, canto xxxi. ver. 34 et seq. 

I looked again : and as the eye makes out, 

By little and little, what the mist conceal'd, 

In which, till clearing up, the sky was steep'd ; 

So, looming through the gross and darksome air, 

As we drew nigh, those mighty bulks grew plain, 

And error quitted me, and terror join'd : 

For in like manner as all round its height 

Montereggione crowns itself with towers, 

So tower'd above the circuit of that pit, 

Though but half out of it, and half within, 

The horrible giants that fought Jove, and still 

Are threaten' d when he thunders. As we near'd 

The foremost, I discern'd his mighty face, 

His shoulders, breast, and more than half his trunk, 

With both the arms down hanging by the sides. 

His face appear'd to me, in length and breadth, 

Huge as St. Peter's pinnacle at Rome, 

And of a like proportion all his bones. 

He open'd, as we went, his dreadful mouth, 

Fit for no sweeter psalmody ; and shouted 

After us, in the words of some strange tongue, 

" Rafel ma-ee amech zabee almee ! — " 

" Dull wretch ! " my leader cried, " keep to thine horn, 
And so vent better whatsoever rage 
Or other passion stuff thee. Feel thy throat 
And find the chain upon thee, thou confusion ! 
Lo ! what a hoop is clench'd about thy gorge." 
Then turning to myself, he said, " His howl 
Is its own mockery. This is Nimrod, he 



WHAT IS POETRY ? 13 

Through whose ill thought it was that humankind 
Were tongue-confounded. Pass him, and say nought : 
For as he speaketh language known of none, 
So none can speak save jargon to himself." 

Assuredly it could not have been easy to find a fiction 
so uncouthly terrible as this in the hypochondria of 
Hamlet. Even his father had evidently seen no such 
ghost in the other world. All his phantoms were in the 
world he had left. Timon, Lear, Kichard, Brutus, Prospero, 
Macbeth himself, none of Shakspeare's men had, in fact, 
any thought but of the earth they lived on, whatever super- 
natural fancy crossed them. The thing fancied was still a 
thing of this world, " in its habit as it lived," or no 
remoter acquaintance than a witch or a fairy. Its lowest 
depths (unless Dante suggested them) were the cellars 
under the stage. Caliban himself is a cross-breed between 
a witch and a clown. No offence to Shakspeare : who was 
not bound to be the greatest of healthy poets, and to have 
every morbid inspiration besides. What he might have 
done, had he set his wits to compete with Dante, I know 
not : all I know is, that in the infernal line he did nothing 
like him ; and it is not to be wished he had. It is far 
better that, as a higher, more universal, and more bene- 
ficent variety of the genus Poet, he should have been the 
happier man he was, and left us the plump cheeks on his 
monument, instead of the carking visage of the great, 
but over-serious, and comparatively one-sided Florentine. 
Even the imagination of Spenser, whom we take to have 
been a " nervous gentleman" compared with Shakspeare, 
was visited with no such dreams as Dante. Or, if it wap, 



14 AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION 

he did not choose to make himself thinner (as Dante says 
lie did) with dwelling upon them. He had twenty visions 
of nymphs and bowers, to one of the mud of Tartarus. 
Chaucer, for all he was " a man of this world" as well as 
the poets' world, and as great, perhaps a greater enemy of 
oppression than Dante, besides being one of the pro- 
foundest masters of pathos that ever lived, had not the 
heart to conclude the story of the famished father and his 
children, as finished by the inexorable anti-Pisan. But 
enough of Dante in this place. Hobbes, in order to daunt 
the reader from objecting to his friend Davenant's want of 
invention, says of these fabulous creations in general, in 
his letter prefixed to the poem of Gondibert, that "impe- 
netrable armours, enchanted castles, invulnerable bodies, 
iron men, flying horses, and a thousand other such things, 
are easily feigned by them that dare." These are girds at 
Spenser and Ariosto. But, with leave of Hobbes (who 
translated Homer as if on purpose to show what execrable 
verses could be written by a philosopher), enchanted castles 
and flying horses are not easily feigned, as Ariosto and 
Spenser feigned them ; and that just makes all the differ- 
ence. For proof, see the accounts of Spenser's enchanted 
castle in Book the Third, Canto Twelfth, of the Fairy 
Queen ; and let the reader of Italian open the Orlando 
Furioso at its first introduction of the Hippogriff 
(Canto iv. st. 3), where Bradamante, coming to an inn, 
hears a great noise, and sees all the people looking up at 
something in the air ; upon which, looking up herself, she 
sees a knight in shining armour riding towards the sunset 
upon a creature with variegated wings, and then dipping 



WHAT IS POETRY ? 15 

and disappearing among the hills. Chaucer's steed of 
brass, that was 

So horsly and so quick of eye, 

is copied from the life. You might pat him and feel his 
brazen muscles. Hobbes, in objecting to what he thought 
childish, made a childish mistake. His criticism is just 
such as a boy might pique himself upon, who was educated 
on mechanical principles, and thought he had outgrown 
his Goody Two-shoes. With a wonderful dimness of dis- 
cernment in poetic matters, considering his acuteness in 
others, he fancies he has settled the question by pro- 
nouncing such creations " impossible ! " To the brazier 
they are impossible, no doubt ; but not to the poet. Their 
possibility, if the poet wills it, is to be conceded ; the pro- 
blem is, the creature being given, how to square its actions 
with probability, according to the nature assumed of it. 
Hobbes did not see that the skill and beauty of these 
fictions lay in bringing them within those very regions of 
truth and likelihood in which he thought they could not 
exist. Hence the serpent Python of Chaucer, 

Sleeping against the sun upon a day, 

when Apollo slew him. Hence the chariot-drawing dol- 
phins of Spenser, softly swimming along the shore lest 
they should hurt themselves against the stones and gravel. 
Hence Shakspeare's Ariel, living under blossoms, and riding 
at evening on the bat ; and his domestic namesake in the 
Rape of the Loch (the imagination of the drawing-room) 
saving a lady's petticoat from the coffee with his plumes, 
and directing atoms of snuff into a coxcomb's nose. In 



16 AN ANSWEK TO THE QUESTION 

the Orlando Furioso (Canto xv. st. 65) is a wild story of 
a cannibal necromancer, who laughs at being cut to pieces, 
coming together again like quicksilver, and picking up 
his head when it is cut off, sometimes by the hair, some- 
times by the nose ! This, which would be purely childish 
and ridiculous in the hands of an inferior poet, becomes 
interesting, nay grand, in Ariosto's, from the beauties of 
his style, and its conditional truth to nature. The monster 
has a fated hair on his head, — a single hair, — which must 
be taken from it before he can be killed. Decapitation 
itself is of no consequence, without that proviso. The 
Paladin Astolfo, who has fought this phenomenon on 
horseback, and succeeded in getting the head and gal- 
loping off with it, is therefore still at a loss what to be 
at. How is he to discover such a needle in such a bottle 
of hay ? The trunk is spurring after him to recover it, 
and he seeks for some evidence of the hair in vain. At 
length he bethinks him of scalping the head. He does 
so ; and the moment the operation arrives at the place of 
the hair, the face of the head becomes pale, the eyes turn 
in their sockets, and the lifeless pursuer tumbles from 
his horse : 

Si fece il viso allor pallido e brutto, 
Travolse gli occhi, e dimostro all' occaso 
Per manifesti segni esser condutto : 
E '1 busto clie seguia troncato al collo, 
Di sella cadde, e die 1' ultimo crollo. 

Then grew the visage pale, and deadly wet , 
The eyes tum'din their sockets, drearily; 
And all tilings show'd the villain's sun was set. 
His trunk that was in chace, fell from its horse, 
And giving the last shudder, was a corse. 



WHAT IS POETEY ? 17 

It is thus, and thus only, by making Nature his companion 
wherever he goes, even in the most supernatural region, 
that the poet, in the words of a very instructive phrase, 
takes the world along with him. It is true, he must not 
(as the Platonists would say) humanize weakly or mis- 
takenly in that region ; otherwise he runs the chance of 
forgetting to be true to the supernatural itself, and so 
betraying a want of imagination from that quarter. His 
nymphs will have no taste of their woods and waters ; his 
gods and goddesses be only so many fair or frowning 
ladies and gentlemen, such as we see in ordinary paintings ; 
he will be in no danger of having his angels likened to a 
sort of wild-fowl, as Kembrandt has made them in his 
" Jacob's Dream." His Bacchuses will never remind us, 
like Titian's, of the force and fury, as well as of the graces 
of wine. His Jupiter will reduce no females to ashes ; 
his fairies be nothing fantastical; his gnomes not " of the 
earth, earthy." And this again will be wanting to Nature ; 
for it will be wanting to the supernatural, as Nature would 
have made it, working in a supernatural direction. Never- 
theless, the poet, even for imagination's sake, must not 
become a bigot to imaginative truth, dragging it down into 
the region of the mechanical and the limited, and losing 
sight of its paramount privilege, which is to make beauty, 
in a human sense, the lady and queen of the universe, 
He would gain nothing by making his ocean-nymphs mere 
fishy creatures, upon the plea that such only could live in 
the water : his wood-nymphs with faces of knotted oak ; his 
angels without breath and song, because no lungs could exist 
between the earth's atmosphere and the empyrean. The 

2 



18 AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION 

Grecian tendency in this respect is safer than the Gothic ; 
nay, more imaginative ; for it enables us to imagine beyond 
imagination, and to bring all things healthily round to 
their only present final ground of sympathy, — the human. 
"When we go to heaven, we may idealize in a superhuman 
mode, and have altogether different notions of the beau- 
tiful ; but till then we must be content with the loveliest 
capabilities of earth. The sea-nymphs of Greece were 
still beautiful women, though they lived in the water. 
The gills and fins of the ocean's natural inhabitants were 
confined to their lowest semi-human attendants ; or if 
Triton himself was not quite human, it was because he 
represented the fiercer part of the vitality of the seas, as 
they did the fairer. 

\ .. To conclude this part of my subject, I will quote from 
the greatest of all narrative writers two passages ; — one 
exemplifying the imagination which brings supernatural 
things to bear on earthly, without confounding them; 
the other, that which paints events and circumstances 
after real life. The first is where Achilles, who has long 
absented himself from the conflict between his country- 
men and the Trojans, has had a message from heaven 
bidding him reappear in the enemy's sight, standing 
outside the camp-wall upon the trench, but doing nothing 
more ; that is to say, taking no part in the fight. He is 
simply to be seen. The two armies down by the sea-side 
are contending which shall possess the body of Patroclus ; 
and the mere sight of the dreadful Grecian chief — super- 
naturally indeed impressed upon them, in order that 
nothing may be wanting to the full effect of his courage 



WHAT IS POETKY ? 19 

and cxmduct upon courageous men — is to determine the 
question. We are to imagine a slope of ground towards 
the sea, in order to elevate the trench ; the camp is soli- 
tary ; the battle (" a dreadful roar of men," as Homer 
calls it) is raging on the sea-shore ; and the goddess Iris 
has just delivered her message and disappeared. — 

Avrdp 'Ax<-XXevg <*>pro, Au QiXog' dp,<pl 8' 'AOr/vr] 
"Qfiotg i<p9i[ioicn /3aX' aiyi8a Qvaaavoeaaav 
'Ajjupl 8e 01 Kefaky vk<pog terrene 8la Oeduiv 
Xpvaeov, Ik 8' avTov 8die (pXoya 7rafi(pav6ix)aav. 
'Qg 8' ore Kairvbg iojv e% aareog aiQkp' 'itcrjrai 
TrjXoQev tic vrjcrov, rr\v 8r\ioi dfupifxaxovTai, 
O'lre 7ra.i>r)[xtpici arvyepip KpivovTcti aprfi 
"Aareog Ik a^erepov. apa 8' rjeXup Kara8vVTi 
Jlvpaoi re (pXey'eQovaiv iirr}Tpijioi, vxpocre 8' avyt) 
Vlyverai dtaaovaa, irepiKTioveaaiv i8kaQai, 
A'ikev ttioq avv vr\va\v dpecjg aXKrrjpeg 'iKojvrai' 
"Qg die 'AxiXXrjog Ke<paXrjg aeXag alOep' wave. 

2r?7 8' eirl rdeppov iihv enrb reixsog' ov8' eg ' Axawhg 
Miayero' firjrpog yap ttvkiv^v ojiri^tr Ifperfiiiv. 
"EvOa crag rfvci' dirdrepQe 8e HaXXdg , AQi)vi] 
<&9ey%aT' drap Tpdoeaaiv Iv aairerov ojpee kv8oi/ji6v. 
'Qg 8* or dpi^rjXT] <pu)vi)> ore r' i'a%6 oaXTciyZ, 
"Acfrv 7repi7rXofxsvh)v 8rfiu)v virb Ovfiopa'iaTeuV 
"Qg tot dpiZjjXri (pdjvrj yever AiaKi8ao. 
Ot 8' d)g ovv d'iov oira xaX/ceov AiaKiSao, 
Tldaiv dpivQrj Qvpog" drap KaXXirpixtg "nncoi 
"A\j/ b"x £a rpoireov ovaovro yap dXyea Qv]x<^. 
'Rvioxol 8' eKTrXriyev, eirei 'L8ov aKafiarov 7rvp 
Aeivbv inrep KeQaXfjg fieyaOvpov JlrjXeiojvog 
Aaw/xevov to 8' tSate 6ed yXavKu>7rig 'AQrjvrj. 
Tplg fiev virep rdfpov fieydX' ta%c 8log 'AxiXXevg' 
Tpig 8* lKVKrj9r)<rav Tp&eg kXeitoi t tTriKovpoi. 
'EvQd 8e Kal tot oXovto 8vw8tKa tyuireg dpiGTOi 
'AfKpl o<potg ox^eaai kcu eyxtoiv. 

—Iliad, lib. xviii. vv. 203—231. 

But up Achilles rose, the lov'd of heaven ; 
And Pallas on his mighty shoulders cast 



20 AN ANSWER TO TfiE QUESTION 

The shield of Jove ; and round about his head 

She put the glory of a golden mist, 

From which there burnt a fiery-flaming light. 

And as, when smoke goes heaven-ward from a town, 

In some far island which its foes besiege, 

Who all day long with dreadful martialness 

Have pour'd from their own town ; soon as the sun 

Has set, thick lifted fires are visible, 

Which, rushing upward, make a light in the sky, 

And let the neighbours know, who may perhaps 

Bring help across the sea ; so from the head 

Of great Achilles went up an effulgence. 

Upon the trench he stood, without the wall, 

But mix'd not with the Greeks, for he rever'd 

His mother's word ; and so, thus standing there, 

He shouted ; and Minerva, to his shout, 

Added a dreadful cry ; and there arose 

Among the Trojans an unspeakable tumult. 

And as the clear voice of a trumpet, blown 

Against a town by spirit- withering foes, 

So sprang the clear voice of iEacides. 

And when they heard the brazen cry, their hearts 

All leap'd within them ; and the proud-maned horses 

Ran with the chariots round, for they foresaw 

Calamity ; and the charioteers were smitten, 

When they beheld the ever-active fire 

Upon the dreadful head of the great-minded one 

Burning ; for bright-eyed Pallas made it burn. 

Thrice o'er the trench divine Achilles shouted ; 

And thrice the Trojans and their great allies 

PtoU'd back ; and twelve of all their noblest men 

Th n perish'd, crush'd by their own arms and chariots. 

Of course there is no further question about the body of 
Patroclus. It is drawn out of the press, and received by 
the awful hero with tears. 

^ The other passage is where Priam, kneeling before 
Achilles, and imploring him to give up the dead body of 



WHAT IS POETRY? 21 

Hector, reminds him of his own father ; who, whatever (says 
the poor old king) may he his troubles with his enemies, 
has the blessing of knowing that his son is still alive, and 
may daily hope to see him return. Achilles, in accordance 
with the strength and noble honesty of the passions in 
those times, weeps aloud himself at this appeal, feeling, 
says Homer, " desire " for his father in his very " limbs." 
He joins in grief with the venerable sufferer, and can no 
longer withstand the look of " his grey head and his grey 
chin." Observe the exquisite introduction of this last 
word. It paints the touching fact of the chin's being 
imploringly thrown upward by the kneeling old man, and 
the very motion of his beard as he speaks. — 

n Qg dpa (fxovrjcrag, a7ref3rj irpbg /xaicpbv "OXvfnrov 
'Epfitiag' Jlpiapiog <T £? i7T7rwv dXro x^c^t, 
'IdaTov 8e kqt avQi X'nrev' 6 8e fxifxvev epvKcvv 
"Ittttovq tj/mSvovq re' y'epuv 8' i9vg Kiev oLkov, 
Ty p' 'AxiXevg 'iZ,taKE, Ait QiXog' ev 8'e jxiv avrbv 
Evp', erapoi 8' airavtvQe KaQtiaro' t<jj 8e 8v' o'iio 
"Howe AvTOfisdcov re, Kal "AXki/j-oq 6%og "Aprjog, 
Tio'nrvvov irapebvTe' (ykov 8' aTrkXrjyev L8u)8rjg, 
"EcrQiov Kal irivuv, en Kal 7rap'siceiro rpdire^a') 
Tovg 8' eXaO' elaeXOwv Hpia/xog [xeyag, ay%t 8' dpa ardg, 
Xepcrlv 'AxiXXijog Xaj3e yovvara, Kal kvoe %apa? 
Aetvccg, av8po<povovg, dl ol 7roXeag ktclvov vlag. 
'Qg 8' orav dv8p' arr\ TrvKivrj X&fiy, oar, evl Trdrpy 
QoJTa KaraKrelvag, aXXov sZ'iketo Srj/iov, 
'Av8pbg eg atyvewv, 9d[i(3og 8' exei eiaopouyvrag' 
n Qg 'AxtXfvg 9d/xj3r]<Tev, 18Cjv ILpiajiov 9eoei8ea' 
Qan[3r]<Tav Se ical dXXoi, eg dXXijXovg 8e Wovro. 
Tov Kal Xiaaofievog Upia/xog irpbg /j.v9ov eeiire' 

Mvrjcrai Trarpbg ae~io, Qeoig emeiKeX 'AxiXXev, 
TtjXikov, uxrwep lyojv, bXoijj errl yr'jpaog ov8w. 
Kal fikv ttov KeZvov Trepivaurat dpcpig lovreg 
Teipovv, ov8e rig earlv,, dpr/v Kal Xotybv d/ivvai' 



22 AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION 

'AW' ijTOt khvoq y£, akdsv Z,u)OVTog cckovujv, 
Xaipei r iv 6vf.i<fi, ini r ikTrtrai rffiara rtdvra 
"OxpeaOai (p'ikov vibv, airo TpoirjQsv lovra' 
Avrap iyoj 7rava7ror/iog, 67m t'skov vlag dp'icrovg 
Tpoiy iv svpsiy, ru>v 8' ovnva (prj/jil \e\ei<p9ai. 
HsvrrjKOVTa. fioi yvav, or i'jkvQov vhg 'Axaiutv' 
'EvveaKaidtKa [isv fioi irjg Ik vr]Svog ijaav, 
Tovg 8' dXXovg fioi etiktov ivl jxsydpoiai yvvaTtzsg. 
Tu>v jxkv ttoXXwv Oovpog "Aprjg inrb yovvar eXvctev' 
"Og 8s fioi dlog tr}v, e'ipvro 8k darv ical aiirovg, 
Tbv av 7rpu)r)v Krslvag, diivvojisvov Trepl rrdrpjjg, 
"E/cropa" tov vvv eivex licdi>oj vfjag 'AxaioJv, 
Avaofitvog rrapd oeTo, (pspuj 8' dTrtpeioi drroiva. 
'AXX' alSsTo dsovg, 'A^iAey, avrov r i\kr\aov, 
MvTjad/xevog aov rcarpbg' iy<l> 8' iXsEivoTspog Trsp, 
"ErXrjv 8', oV oinrio Tig hTTixQoviog (3porbg dXKog, 
'Av8pbg 7rai8o(p6voto ttotl arbfia x&p' bp'sysaOai. 

n Qg <pdro' rqi 8' dpa Trarpbg v(j>' 'ifiepov tbpcre yooio, 
'AipdfJiEvog 8' dpa x ei pog, aTrdoaaro rjica yspovra. 
T<b 8k /j.vt]<jaiJ.ev(x), 6 fikv Htcropog dvSpofovow, 
KAai' dSivd, 7rpo7rdpoi8e 7ro8u>v 'AxiXrjog iXvoOsig' 
Avrap 'AxiXXevg kXoXev kbv 7raTsp\ dXXore 8' avrs 
HdrpocXov' . rtJv 8k arovaxrj Kara SHi^ar' opwpti. 
Avrap, tTrel pa yooio Ti.rdprci.ro Slog 'Ax<-XXevg, 
KaL oi dirb TrparriSiov ijXO' 'ifiepog, ?)5' dirb yviwv, 
AunV drrb Qpovov (bpro, yspovra 8k x £l P°G aviarr], 

O'lKTUpixJV TToXlOV TE Kapr], TtoXlOV TS ySVElOV. 

— Iliad, lib. xxiv. vv. 468 — 510. 



So saying, Mercury vanished up to heaven ; 
And Priam then alighted from his chariot, 
Leaving Idseus with it, who remain'd 
Holding the mules and horses ; and the old man 
Went straight indoors, where the belov'd of Jove 
Achilles sat, and found him. In the room 
Were others, but apart ; and two alone, 
The hero Automeclon, and Alcimus, 
A branch of Mars, stood by him. They had been 
At meals, and had not yet remov'd the board. 
Great Priam came, without their seeing him, 
And kneeling down, he clasp'd Achilles' knees, 



WHAT IS POETEY ? 23 

And kiss'd those terrible, homicidal hands, 

Which had deprived him of so many sons. 

And as a man who is press'd heavily 

For having slain another, flies away 

To foreign lands, and comes into the honse 

Of some great man, and is beheld with wonder, 

So did Achilles wonder to see Priam; 

And the rest wonder'd, looking at each other. 

But Priam, praying to him, spoke these words : — 

God-like Achilles, think of thine own father ! 

To the same age have we both come, the same 

Weak pass ; and though the neighbouring chiefs may vex 

Him also, and his borders find no help, 

Yet when he hears that thou art still alive, 

He gladdens inwardly, and daily hopes 

To see his dear son coming back from Troy. 

But I, bereav'd old Priam ! I had once 

Brave sons in Troy, and now I cannot say 

That one is left me. Fifty children had I, 

When the Greeks came, nineteen were of one womb ; 

The rest my women bore me in my house. 

The knees of many of these fierce Mars has loosen'd ; 

And he who had no peer, Troy's prop and theirs, 

Him hast thou kill'd now, fighting for his country, 

Hector ; and for his sake am I come here 

To ransom him, bringing a countless ransom. 

But thou, Achilles, fear the gods, and think 

Of thine own father, and ha*ve mercy on me : 

For I am much more wretched, and have borne 

What never mortal bore, I think, on earth, 

To lift unto my lips the hand of him 

Who slew my boys." 

He ceased ; and there arose 
Sharp longing in Achilles for his father ; 
And taking Priam by the hand, he gently 
Put him away ; for both shed tears to think 
Of other times ; the one, most bitter ones 
For Hector, and with wilful wretchedness 
Lay right before Achilles : and the other, 



24 AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION 

For his own father now, and now his friend ; 

And the whole honse might hear them as they moan'd. 

But when divine Achilles had refresh'd 

His soul with tears, and sharp desire had left 

His heart and limbs, he got up from his throne, 

And rais'd the old man by the hand, and took 

Pity on his grey head and his grey chin. 

lovely and immortal privilege of genius ! that can 
stretch its hand -out of the wastes of time, thousands of 
years back, and touch our eyelids with tears. In these 
passages there is not a word which a man of the most 
matter-of-fact understanding might not have written, if he 
had thought of it. But in poetry, feeling and imagination 
are necessary to the perception and presentation even of 
matters of fact. They, and they only, see what is proper 
to be told, and what to be kept back ; what is pertinent, 
affecting, and essential. Without feeling, there is a want 
of delicacy and distinction ; without imagination there is 
no true embodiment. In poets, even good of their kind, 
but without a genius for narration, the action would have 
been encumbered or diverted with ingenious mistakes. 
Tiie over-contemplative would have given us too many 
remarks ; the over-lyrical, a style too much carried away ; 
the over-fanciful, conceits and too many similes ; the 
unimaginative, the facts without the feeling, and not even 
those. "We should have been told nothing of the "grey 
chin," of the house hearing them as they moaned, or of 
Achilles gently putting the old man aside ; much less of 
that yearning for his father, which made the hero tremble 
in every limb. Writers without the greatest passion and 
power do not feel in this way, nor are capable of expressing 



WHAT IS POETBY? 25 

the feeling ; though there is enough sensibility and imagi- 
nation all over the world to enable mankind to be moved 
by it, when the poet strikes his truth into their hearts. 

The reverse of imagination is exhibited in pure absence 
of ideas, in commonplaces, and, above all, in conventional 
metaphor, or such images and their phraseology as have 
become the common property of discourse and writing. 
Addison's Cato is full of them : 

Passion unpitied and successless love 
Plant daggers in my breast. 

I've sounded my Numidians, man by man, 
And find them ripe for a revolt. 

The virtuous Marcia towers above her sex. 

Of the same kind is his " courting the yoke " — " distract- 
ing my very heart " — " calling up all " one's " father " in 
one's soul — " working every nerve" — "copying a bright 
example ; " in short, the whole play, relieved now and 
then with a smart sentence or turn of words. The fol- 
lowing is a pregnant example of plagiarism and weak 
writing. It is from another tragedy of Addison's time, — 
the Mariamne of Fenton : — 

Mariamne, with superior charms, 
Triumphs o'er reason ; in her look she bears 
A paradise of ever-blooming sweets ; 
Fair as the first idea beauty prints 
In the young lover's soul ; a winning grace 
Guides every gesture, and obsequious love 
Attends on all her steps. 

"Triumphing o'er reason" is an old acquaintance of 
everybody's. "Paradise in her look" is from the Italian 



26 AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION 

poets through Dryden. " Fair as the first idea," &c. is 
from Milton, spoilt ; — " winning grace " and '" steps " 
from Milton and Tibullus, both spoilt. Whenever beauties 
are stolen by such a writer, they are sure to be spoilt : just 
as when a great writer borrows, he improves. 

To come now to Fancy, — she is a younger sister of 
Imagination, without the other's weight of thought and 
feeling. Imagination indeed, purely so called, is all 
feeling; the feeling of the subtlest and most affecting 
analogies ; the perception of sympathies in the natures of 
things, or in their popular attributes. Fancy is a sporting 
with their resemblance, real or supposed, and with airy 
and fantastical creations. — 

■ — Rouse yourself ; and the weak wanton Cupid 
Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold, 
And, like a dew-drop from the lion's mane, 
Be shooJc to air. 

— Troilus and Cressida, Act iii. sc. 3. 

That is imagination; — the strong mind sympathizing 
with the strong beast, and the weak love identified with 
the weak dew-drop. 

Oh ! — and I forsooth 

In love ! I that have been love's whip ! 

A very beadle to a humorous sigh ; 

A domineering pedant o'er the boy ; — ■ — 

This wimpled, winning, purblind, wayward boy ; 

This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid, 

Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms, 

The anointed sovereign of sighs and groans, &c. 

— Loves Labour s Lost, Act iii. sc. 1. 

That is fancy; — a combination of images not in their 
nature connected, or brought together by the feeling, but 



WHAT IS POETRY? 27 

by the will and pleasure; and having just enough hold 
of analogy to betray it into the hands of its smiling 

subjector. 

Silent icicles 
Quietly shining to the quiet moon. 

— Coleridge's Frost at Midnight. 

That, again, is imagination ; — analogical sympathy ■ and 
exquisite of its kind it is. 

You are now sailed into the north of my lady's opinion ; where 
yon will hang like an icicle on a Dutchman's beard, unless you do 
redeem it by some laudable attempt. 

— Twelfth Night, Act iii. sc. 2. 

And that is fancy ; — one image capriciously suggested by 
another, and but half connected with the subject of dis- 
course ; nay, half opposed to it ; for in the gaiety of the 
speaker's animal spirits, the "Dutchman's beard" is made 
to represent the lady ! 

Imagination belongs to Tragedy, or the serious muse; 
Fancy to the comic. Macbeth, Lear, Paradise Lost, the 
poem of Dante, are full of imagination : the Midsummer 
Night's Dream and the Rape of the Lock, of fancy : 
Romeo and Jidiet, the Tempest, the Fairy Queen, and the 
Orlando Furioso, of both. The terms were formerly 
identical, or used as such ; and neither is the best that 
might be found. The term Imagination is too confined : 
often too material. It presents too invariably the idea of 
a solid body; — of " images" in the sense of the plaster- 
cast cry about the streets. Fancy, on the other hand, 
while it means nothing but a spiritual image or apparition 
{(pavraafiaj appearance, phantom), has rarely that freedom 



28 AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION 

from visibility which is one of the highest privileges of 
imagination. Viola, in Twelfth Night, speaking of some 
beautiful music, says : — 

It gives a very echo to the seat, 
Where Love is throned. 

In this charming thought, fancy and imagination are com- 
bined ; yet the fancy, the assumption of Love's sitting on 
a throne, is the image of a solid body ; while the imagina- 
tion, the sense of sympathy between the passion of love 
and impassioned music, presents us no image at all. Some 
new term is wanting to express the more spiritual sym- 
pathies of what is called Imagination. 

One of the teachers of Imagination is Melancholy ; and 
like Melancholy, as Albert Durer has painted her, she 
looks out among the stars, and is busied with spiritual 
affinities and the mysteries of the universe. Fancy turns 
her sister's wizard instruments into toys. She takes a 
telescope in her hand, and puts a mimic star on her fore- 
head, and sallies forth as an emblem of astronomy. Her 
tendency is to the child-like aod sportive. She chases 
butterflies, while her sister takes flight with angels. She 
is the genius of fairies, of gallantries, of fashions ; of 
whatever is quaint and light, showy and capricious ; of the 
poetical part of wit. She adds wings and feelings to the 
images of wit ; and delights as much to people nature with 
smiling ideal sympathies, as wit does to bring antipathies 
together, and make them strike light on absurdity. Fancy, 
however, is not incapable of sympathy with Imagination. 
She is often found in her company ; always, in the case of 
the greatest poets ; often in that of less, though with them 



WHAT IS POETEY? 29 

she is the greater favourite. Spenser has great imagina- 
tion and fancy too, but more of the latter; Milton both 
also, the very greatest, but with imagination predominant ; 
Chaucer, the strongest imagination of real life, beyond any 
writers but Homer, Dante, and Shakspeare, and in comic 
painting inferior to none ; Pope has hardly any imagina- 
tion, but he has a great deal of fancy; Coleridge little 
fancy, but imagination exquisite. Shakspeare alone, of all 
poets that ever lived, enjoyed the regard of both in equal 
perfection. A whole fairy poem of his writing will be 
found in the present volume. See also his famous 
description of Queen Mab and her equipage, in Romeo 
and Juliet : — 

Her waggon-spokes made of long-spinners' legs ; 
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers : 
The traces of the smallest spider's web ; 
The collars of the moonshine's watery beams, &c. 

That is Fancy, in its playful creativeness. As a small 
but pretty rival specimen, less known, take the description 
of a fairy palace from Drayton's Nymphidia : — 

» 

Tliis palace standeth in the air, 
By necromancy placed there, 
That it no tempest needs to fear, 

Which way soe'er it blow it : 
And somewhat .southward tow'rd the noon. 
Whence lies a way up to the moon, 
And thence the Fairy can as soon 

Pass to the earth below it. 
The walls of spiders' legs are made, 
Well mortised and finely laid ; 
He was the master of his trade, 

It curiously that builded : 



&0 AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION 

The windows of the eyes of cats : 
(because they see best at night,) 

And for the roof instead of slats 
Is cover'd with the skins of bats 
With moonshine that are gilded. 

Aere also is a fairy bed, very delicate, from the same poet's 
}f use's Elysium : 

Of leaves of roses, white and red, 
Shall be the covering of the bed ; 
The curtains, vallens, tester all 
Shall be the flower imperial ; 
And for the fringe it all along 
With azure hare-bells shall be hung. 
Of lilies shall the pilloics be 
With down stuft of the butterfly. 

Of fancy, so full of gusto as to border on imagination, 

Sir John Suckling, in his Ballad on a Wedding, has given 

some of the most playful and charming specimens in the 

language. They glance like twinkles of the eye, or cherries 

bedewed : 

Her feet beneath her petticoat 
Like little mice stole in and out, 

As if they feard the light : 
But oh ! she dances such a way ! 
No sun upon an Easter day 

Is half so fine a sight. 

It is very daring, and has a sort of playful grandeur, to 
compare a lady's dancing with the sun. But as the sun 
has it all to himself in the heavens, so she, in the blaze 
of her beauty, on earth. This is imagination fairly 
displacing fancy. The following has enchanted every- 
body : — 



WHAT IS POETRY ? 81 

Her lips were red, and one was thin 
Compared with that was next her chin, 
Some bee had stung it newly. 

Every reader lias stolen a' kiss at that lip, gay or grave. 

With regard to the principle of Variety in Uniformity^ 
by which verse ought to be modulated, and one-ness of 
impression diversely produced, it has been contended by 
some, that Poetry need not be written in verse at all ; that 
prose is as good a medium, provided poetry be conveyed 
through it ; and that to think otherwise is to confound 
letter with spirit, or form with essence. But the opinion 
is a prosaical mistake. Fitness and unfitness for song, or 
metrical excitement, just make all the difference between 
a poetical and prosaical subject ; and the reason why verse 
is necessary to the form of poetry is, that the perfection 
of poetical spirit demands it ; — that the circle of its enthu- 
siasm, beauty, and power, is incomplete without it. I do 
not mean to say that a poet can never show himself a poet 
in prose ; but that, being one, his desire and necessity 
will be to write in verse ; and that, if he were unable to 
do so, he would not, and could not, deserve his title. 
Yerse to the true poet is no clog. It is idly called a 
trammel and a difficulty. It is a help. It springs from 
the same enthusiasm as the rest of his impulses, and is 
necessary to their satisfaction and effect. Yerse is no 
more a clog than the condition of rushing upward is a clog 
to fire, or than the roundness and order of the globe we 
live on is a clog to the freedom and variety that abound 
within its sphere. Yerse is no dominator over the poet, 
except inasmuch as the bond is reciprocal, and the poet 



32 AN ANSWER TO TfiE QUESTION 

dominates over the verse. They are lovers, playfully 
challenging each other's rule, and delighted equally to rule 
and to obey. Verse is the final proof to the poet that his 
mastery over his art is complete. It is the shutting up of 
his powers in " measureful content; " the answer of form 
to his spirit ; of strength and ease to his guidance. It is 
the willing action, the proud and fiery happiness, of the 
winged steed on whose back he has vaulted, 

To witch the world with wondrous horsemanship. 

W Verse, in short, is that finishing, and rounding, and 
"tuneful planetting " of the poet's creations, which is 
produced of necessity by the smooth tendencies of their 
energy or inward working, and the harmonious dance into 
which they are attracted round the orb of the beautiful. 
Poetry, in its complete sympathy with beauty, must, of 
necessity, leave no sense of the beautiful, and no power 
over its forms, unmanifested ; and verse flows as inevitably 
from this condition of its integrity, as other laws of pro- 
portion do from any other kind of embodiment of beauty 
(say that of the human figure) y however free and various 
the movements may be that play within their limits. 
What great poet ever wrote his poems in prose ? or where 
is a good prose poem, of any length, to be found ? The 
poetry of the Bible is understood to be in verse, in the 
original. Mr. Hazlitt has said a good word for those 
prose enlargements of some fine old song, which are 
known by the name of Ossian; and in passages they 
deserve what he said ; but he judiciously abstained from 
saying anything about the form. Is Gesner's Death of 



WHAT IS POETBY? 33 

Abel a poem? or Hervey's Meditations 1 The Pilgrim's 
Progress has been called one ; and, undoubtedly, Bunyan 
had a genius which tended to make him a poet, and one 
of no mean order : and yet it was of as ungenerous and 
low a sort as was compatible with so lofty an affinity ; 
and this is the reason why it stopped where it did. He 
had a craving after the beautiful, but not enough of it in 
himself to echo to its music. On the other hand, the 
possession of the beautiful will not be sufficient without 
force to utter it. The author of Telemachus had a soul full 
of beauty and tenderness. He was not a man who, if he 
had had a wife and children, would have run away from 
them, as Bunyan's hero did, to get 'a place by himself in 
heaven. He was " a little lower than the angels," like 
our own Bishop Jewells and Berkeleys ; and yet he was 
no poet. He was too delicately, not to say feebly, ab- 
sorbed in his devotions to join in the energies of the 
seraphic choir. 

Every poet, then, is a versifier ; every fine poet an ■ "' 
excellent one ; and he is the best whose verse exhibits the 
greatest amount of strength, sweetness, straightforward- 
ness, unsuperfluousness, variety, and one-ness ; — one-ness, 
that is to say, consistency, in the general impression, 
metrical and moral ; and variety, or every pertinent 
diversity of tone and rhythm, in the process. Strength is 
the muscle of verse, and shows itself in the number and 
force of the marked syllables ; as, 

Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds. — Paradise Lost. 

Behemoth, biggest born of earth, upheav'd 
His vastness. — Id. 



M AN ANSWER TO THE Q-UESTION 

Blow, wind, and crack your cheeks ! rage ! blow I 

You cataracts, and hurricanoes, spout 

Till you have drench' d our steeples, drown'd the cocks ! 

You sulphurous and thought-executing fires, 

Vaunt- couriers to oak- cleaving thunderbolts, 

Singe my white head ! And thou, all-shaking thunder, 

Strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world ! — Lear. 

Unexpected locations of the accent double this force, 
and render it characteristic of passion and abruptness. 
And here comes into play the reader's corresponding fine- 
ness of ear, and his retardations and accelerations in 
accordance with those of the poet : — 

Then in the keyhole turns 
The intricate wards, and every bolt and bar 
Unfastens. — On a sudden open fly 
With impetuous recoil and jarring sound 
The infernal doors, and on their hinges grate 
Harsh thunder. — Par. Lost, Book II. 

Abominable — unutterable — and worse 
Than fables yet have feigned. — Id. 

Wallowing unwieldy — enormous in their gait. — Id. 

Of unusual passionate accent, there is an exquisite 
specimen in the Fairy Queen, where Una is lamenting her 
desertion by the Red- Cross Knight : — 

But he, my lion, and my noble lord, 
How does he find in cruel heart to hate 
Her that him lov'd, and ever most ador'd 
As the god of my life ? Why hath he me abhorr'd? 

See the whole stanza, with a note upon it, in the present 
volume. 

The abuse of strength is harshness and heaviness ; the 



WHAT IS POETRY ? ?5 

reverse of it is weakness. There is a noble sentiment, — 
it appears both in Daniel's and Sir John Beaumont's 
works, but is most probably the latter's, — which is a perfect 
outrage of strength in the sound of the words : — 

Only the firmest and the constant 'st hearts 
God sets to act the stout st and hardest parts. 

Stoufst and constant' st for "stoutest" and "most con- 
stant ! " It is as bad as the intentional crabbedness of 
the line in Hudibras : 

He that hangs or beats out's brains, 
The devil's in him if he feigns. 

Beats out's brains, for " beats out his brains." Of heavi- 
ness, Davenant's Gonclibert is a formidable specimen, 
almost throughout : — 

With silence (order's help, and mark of care) 

They chide that noise which heedless youth affect ; 
Still course for use, for health they cleanness wear, 

And save in well-fix'd arms, all niceness check'd. 
They thought, those that, unarm'd, expos'd frail life, 

But naked nature valiantly betray'd ; 
Who was, though naked, safe, till pride made strife, 

But made defence must use, now danger's made. 

And so he goes digging and lumbering on, like a heavy 
preacher thumping the pulpit in italics, and spoiling many 
ingenious reflections. 

Weakness in versification is want of accent and 
emphasis. It generally accompanies prosaicalness, and 
is the consequence of weak thoughts, and of the affectation 
of a certain well-bred enthusiasm. The writings of the 
late Mr. Hayley were remarkable for it; and it abounds 



36 AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION 

among the lyrical imitators of Cowley, and the whole of 
what is called our French school of poetry, when it aspired 
ahove its wit and " sense." It sometimes breaks down 
in a horrible, hopeless manner, as if giving way at the 
first step. The following ludicrous passage in Congreve, 
intended to be particularly fine, contains an instance : — 

And lo ! Silence himself is here ; 
Methinks I see the midnight god appear. 
In all his downy pomp array'd, 

Behold the reverend shade. 
An ancient sigh he sits upon ! ! ! 
Whose memory of sound is long since gone, 
And purposely annihilated for his throne ! ! ! 

— Ode on the singing of Mrs. Arabella Hunt. 

See also the would-be enthusiasm of Addison about 
music : — 

For ever consecrate the day 
To music and Cecilia ; 
Music, the greatest good that mortals know, 
And all of heaven we have below, 
Music can noble hints impart ! ! ! 

It is observable that the unpoetic masters of ridicule 
are apt to make the most ridiculous mistakes, when they 
come to affect a strain higher than the one they are accus- 
tomed to. But no wonder. Their habits neutralize the 
enthusiasm it requires. 

Sweetness, though not identical with smoothness, any 
more than feeling is with sound, always includes it ; and 
smoothness is a thing so little to be regarded for its own 
sake, and indeed so worthless in poetry, but for some taste 
of sweetness, that I have not thought necessary to mention 



WHAT IS POETRY? 37 

it by itself; though such an all-in-all in versification was 
it regarded not a hundred years back, that Thomas Warton, 
himself an idolator of Spenser, ventured to wish the 
following line in the Fairy Queen, 

And was admired much of fools, women, and boys- 
altered to 

And was admired much of women, fools, and boys — 

thus destroying the fine scornful emphasis on the first 
syllable of " women ! " (an ungallant intimation, by the 
way, against the fair sex, very startling in this no less 
woman-loving than great poet). Any poetaster can be 
smooth. Smoothness abounds in all small poets, as sweet- 
ness does in the greater. Sweetness is the smoothness of 
grace and delicacy, — of the sympathy with the pleasing 
and lovely. Spenser is full of it, — Shakspeare — Beaumont 
and Fletcher — Coleridge. Of Spenser's and Coleridge's 
versification it is the prevailing characteristic. Its main 
secrets are a smooth progression between variety and 
sameness, and a voluptuous sense of the continuous, — 
" linked sweetness long draWn out." Observe the first 
and last lines of the stanza in the Fairy Queen, describing 
a shepherd brushing away the gnats ; — the open and the 
close e's in the one, 

As gentle shepherd in sweet eventide — 

and the repetition of the word oft, and the fall from the 
vowel a into the two %'s in the other, — 

She brusheth oft, and oft doth mar their murmurings. 



38 AN ANSWEB TO THE QUESTION 

So in his description of two substances in the handling, 
both equally smooth ; — 

Each smoother seems than each, and each than each seems smoother. 

An abundance of examples from his poetry will be 
found in the volume before us. His beauty revolves on 
itself with conscious loveliness. And Coleridge is worthy 
to be named with him, as the reader will see also, and has 
seen already. Let him take a sample meanwhile from the 
poem called the Day-Dream / Observe both the variety 
and sameness of the vowels, and the repetition of the soft 
consonants : — 

My eyes make pictures when they're shut : — 

I see a fountain, large and fair, 
A willow and a ruin'd hut, 

And thee and me and Mary there. 
Mary ! make thy gentle lap our pillow ; 
Bend oer us, like a bower, my beautiful green willow. 

By Straightforwardness is meant the flow of words in 
their natural order, free alike from mere prose, and from 
those inversions to which bad poets recur in order to 
escape the charge of prose, but chiefly to accommodate 
their rhymes. In Shadwell's play of Psyche, Yenus gives 
the sisters of the heroine an answer, of which the following 
is the entire substance, literally, in so many words. The 
author had nothing better for her to say : — 

I receive your prayers with kindness, and will give success to 
your hopes. I have seen, with anger, mankind adore your sister's 
beauty and deplore her scorn : which they shall do no more. For 
I'll so resent their idolatry, as shall content your wishes to the full. 

Now in default of all imagination, fancy, and expres- 



WHAT IS POETBY? 39 

sion, how was the writer to turn these words into poetry 
or rhyme ? Simply by diverting them from their natural 
order, and twisting the halves of the sentences each before 
the other. 

"With kindness I your prayers receive, 

And to your hopes success will give. 
I have, with anger, seen mankind adore 
Your sister's beauty and her scorn deplore ; 

Which they shall do no more. 
For their idolatry I'll so resent, 
As shall your wishes to the full content ! ! 

This is just as if a man were to allow that there was 
no poetry in the words, "How do you find yourself ?" 
" Very well, I thank you ; " but to hold them inspired, if 
altered into 

Yourself how do you find ? 
Very well, you I thank. 

It is true, the best writers in Shadwell's age were 
addicted to these inversions, partly for their own reasons, 
as far as rhyme was concerned, and partly because- they 
held it to be writing in the classical and Virgilian manner. 
What has since been called Artificial Poetry was then 
flourishing, in contradistinction to Natural; or Poetry 
seen chiefly through art and books, and not in its 
first sources. But when the artificial poet partook 
of the natural, or, in other words, was a true poet 
after his kind, his best was always written in his 
most natural and straightforward manner. Hear Shad- 
well's antagonist Dryden. Not a particle of inversion, 
beyond what is used for the sake of emphasis in com- 



40 AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION 

mon discourse, and this only in one line (the last but 
three), is to be found in his immortal character of the 
Duke of Buckingham : — 

A man so various, that he seemed to be 
Not one, but all mankind's epitome : 
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, 
Was everything by starts, and nothing long ; 
But in the course of one revolving moon 
Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon : 
Then all for women, rhyming, dancing, drinking, 
Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking. 
Blest madman ! who could every hour employ 
With something new to wish or to enjoy J 
Railing and praising were his usual themes , 
And both, to show his judgment, in extremes : 
So over- violent, or over- civil, 
That every man with him was god or devil. 
In squandering wealth was Ms peculiar art ; 
Nothing went unrewarded, but desert. 
Beggar'd by fools, whom still he found too late, 
He had his jest, and they had his estate. 

Inversion itself was often turned into a grace in these 
poets, and may be in others, by the power of being supe- 
rior to it ; using it only with a classical air, and as a help 
lying next to them, instead of a salvation which they are 
obliged to seek. In jesting passages also it sometimes 
gave the rhyme a turn agreeably wilful, or an appearance 
of choosing what lay in its way ; as if a man should pick 
up a stone to throw at another's head, where a less con- 
fident foot would have stumbled over it. Such is Dryden's 
use of the word might — the mere sign of a tense — in his 
pretended ridicule of the monkish practice of rising to 
sing psalms in the night. 



WHAT IS POETBY? 41 

And much they griev'd to see so nigh their hall 
The bird that warn'd St. Peter of Ms fall ; 
That he should raise his mitred crest on high, 
And clap his wings and call his family 
To sacred rites ; and vex th' ethereal powers 
With midnight matins at uncivil hours ; 
Nay more, his quiet neighbours should molest 
Just in the sweetness of their morning rest. 

(What a line fall of " another doze " is that !) 

Beast of a bird! supinely, when he might 
Lie snug and sleep, to rise before the light ! 
What if his dull forefathers used that cry ? 
Could he not let a bad example die ? 

I the more gladly quote instances like those of Dryden, Is* 
to illustrate the points in question, because they are 
specimens of the very highest kind of writing in the heroic 
couplet upon subjects not heroical. As to prosaicalness 
in general, it is sometimes indulged in by young writers 
on the plea of its being natural ; but this is a mere confu- 
sion of triviality with propriety, and is usually the result 
of indolence. 

Unsuperfluousness is rather a matter of style in general, 
than of the sound and order of 'words : and yet versification 
is so much strengthened by it, and so much weakened by 
its opposite, that it could not but come within the cate- 
gory of its requisites. When superfluousness of words is 
not occasioned by overflowing animal spirits, as in Beau- 
mont and Fletcher, or by the very genius of luxury, as in 
Spenser (in which cases it is enrichment as well as over- 
flow), there is no worse sign for a poet altogether, except 
pure barrenness. Every word that could be taken away 
from a poem, unreferable to either of the above reasons for 



42 AN ANSWEB TO THE QUESTION 

it, is a damage ; and many such are death ; for there is 
nothing that posterity seems so determined to resent as 
this want of respect for its time and trouble. The world 
is too rich in books to endure it. Even true poets have 
died of this Writer's Evil. Trifling ones have survived, 
with scarcely any pretensions but the terseness of their 
trifles. What hope can remain for wordy mediocrity ? 
Let the discerning reader take up any poem, pen in hand, 
for the purpose of discovering how many words he can 
strike out of it that give him no requisite ideas, no relevant 
ones that he cares for, and no reasons for the rhyme 
beyond its necessity, and he will see what blot and havoc 
he will make in many an admired production of its day, 
— what marks of its inevitable fate. Bulky authors in 
particular, however safe they may think themselves, would 
do well to consider what parts of their cargo they might 
dispense with in their proposed voyage down the gulfs of 
time ; for many a gallant vessel, thought indestructible in 
its age, has perished : — many a load of words, expected 
to be in eternal demand, gone to join the wrecks of self- 
love, or rotted in the warehouses of change and vicissitude. 
I have said the more on this point, because in an age when 
the true inspiration has undoubtedly been re-awakened by 
Coleridge and his fellows, and we have so many new 
poets coming forward, it may be as well to give a general 
warning against that tendency to an accumulation and 
ostentation of thoughts, which is meant to be a refu- 
tation in full of the pretensions of all poetry less cogita- 
bund, whatever may be the requirements of its class. 
Young writers should bear in mind, that even some of 



WHAT IS POETRY? 43 

the very best materials for poetry are not poetry built ; and 
that the smallest marble shrine, of exquisite workmanship, 
outvalues all that architect ever chipped away. Whatever 
can be so dispensed with is rubbish. 

Variety in versification consists in whatsoever can be^ 
done for the prevention of monotony, by diversity of 
stops and cadences, distribution of emphasis, and retarda- 
tion and acceleration of time ; for the whole real secret 
of versification is a musical secret, and is not attainable 
to any vital effect save by the ear of genius. All the mere 
knowledge of feet and numbers, of accent and quantity, 
will no more impart it, than a knowledge of the Guide to 
Music will make a Beethoven or a Paisiello. It is a 
matter of sensibility and imagination ; of the beautiful in 
poetical passion, accompanied by musical ; of the impera- 
tive necessity for a pause here, and a cadence there, and a 
quicker or slower utterance in this or that place, created 
by analogies of sound with sense, by the fluctuations of 
feeling, by the demands of the gods and graces that 
visit the poet's harp, as the winds visit that of iEolus. 
The same time and quantity which are occasioned by the 
spiritual part of this secret, thus become its formal ones, 
— not feet and syllables, long and short, iambics or 
trochees ; which are the reduction of it to its less than dry 
bones. You might get, for instance, not only ten and 
eleven, but thirteen or fourteen syllables into a rhyming, 
as well as blank, heroical verse, if time and the feeling 
permitted ; and in irregular measure this is often done ; 
just as musicians put twenty notes in a bar instead of two, 
quavers instead of minims, according as the feeling they 



44 AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION 

are expressing impels them to fill up the time with short 
and hurried notes, or with long ; or as the choristers in a 
cathedral retard or precipitate the words of the chaunt, 
according as the quantity of its notes, and the colon which 
divides the verse of the psalm, conspire to demand it. 
Had the moderns borne this principle in mind when they 
settled the prevailing systems of verse, instead of learning 
them, as they appear to have done, from the first drawling 
and one-syllabled notation of the church hymns, we should 
have retained all the advantages of the more numerous 
versification of the ancients, without being compelled to 
fancy that there was no alternative for us between our 
syllabical uniformity and the hexameters or other special 
forms unsuited to our tongues. But to leave this ques- 
tion alone, we will present the reader with a few sufficing 
specimens of the difference between monotony and variety 
in versification, first from Pope, Dry den, and Milton, and 
next from Gay and Coleridge. The following is the 
boasted melody of the nevertheless exquisite poet of the 
Rape of the Lock, — exquisite in his wit and fancy, though 
not in his numbers. The reader will observe that it is 
literally seesaw, like the rising and falling of a plank, 
with a light person at one end who is jerked up in the 
briefer time, and a heavier one who is set down more 
leisurely at the other. It is in the otherwise charming 
description of the heroine of that poem : — 

On her white breast — a sparkling cross she wore, 
"Which Jews might kiss — and infidels adore ; 
Her lively looks — a sprightly mind disclose, 
Quick as her eyes — and as unfi^'d as those 



WHAT IS POETRY? 45 

Favours to none— to all she smiles extends, 
Oft she rejects — but never once offends ; 
Bright as the sun — her eyes the gazers strike, 
And like the sun — they shine on all alike ; 
Yet graceful ease — and sweetness void of pride, 
Might hide her faults — if belles had faults to hide ; 
If to her share — some female errors fall, 
Look on her face — and you'll forget them all. 

Compare with this the description of Iphigenia in on* 

of Dryden's stories from Boccaccio : — 

It happen'd — on a summer's holiday, 

That to the greenwood shade — he took his way, 

For Cymon shunn'd the church — and used not much to pray : 

His quarter-staff — which he could ne'er forsake, 

Hung half before — and half behind his back : 

He trudg'd along — not knowing what he sought, 

And whistled as he went — for want of thought. 

By chance conducted — or by thirst constrain'd, 

The deep recesses of a grove he gain'd : — 

Where — in a plain defended by a wood, 

Crept through the matted grass — a crystal flood, ! 

By which — an alabaster fountain stood ; 

And on the margent of the fount was laid — 

Attended by her slaves — a sleeping maid ; 

Like Dian and her nymphs — when, tir'd with sport, 

To rest by cool Eurotas they re,sort. — 

The dame herself— the goddess well express'd, 

Not more distinguished by her purple vest — 

Than by the charming features of the face — 

And e'en in slumber — a superior grace : 

Her comely limbs — compos'd with decent care, 

Her body shaded — by a light cymarr, 

Her bosom to the view — was only bare ; 

Where two beginning paps were scarcely spied — 

For yet their places were but signified. — 

The fanning wind upon her bosom blows — 

To meet the fanning wind — the bosom rose , 

The fanning wind — and purling stream — continue her repose. 



46 AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION 

For a further variety take, from the same author's 
Theodore and Honoria, a passage in which the couplets 
are run one into the other, and all of it modulated, like 
the former, according to the feeling demanded by the 
occasion : — 

Whilst listening to the murmuring leaves lie stood — 

More than a mile immers'd within the wood — 

At once the wind was laid.l — The whispering sound 

"Was dumb. I — A rising earthquake rock'd the ground. 

With deeper brown the grove was overspread- 

A sudden horror seiz'd his giddy head — 

And his ears tinkled — and his colour fled. 

Nature was in alarm. — Some danger nigh 
Seem'd threaten'd — though unseen to mortal eye. 
Unus'd to fear — he summon'd all his soul, 
And stood collected in himself — and whole : 
Not long. — 

But for a crowning specimen of variety of pause and 

accent, apart from emotion, nothing can surpass- the 

account, in Paradise Lost, of the Devil's search for an 

accomplice : — 

There was a place, 
Now not — though Sin — not Time — first wrought the change, 
Where Tigris — at the foot of Paradise, 
Into a gulf — shot under ground — till part 
Rose up a foimtain by the Tree of Life. 
In with the river sunk — and with it rose 
Satan — involv'd in rising mist — then sought 
Where to lie hid. — Sea he had search'd — and land 
From Eden over Pontus — and the pool 
Mseotis — up beyond the river Ob ; 
Downward as far antarctic ; — and in length 
West from Orontes — to the ocean barr'd 
At Darien — thence to the land where flows 
Ganges, and Indus. — Thus the orb he roam'd 



WHAT IS POETRY? 47 

With narrow search ; — and with inspection deep 
Consider'd every creature — which of all 
Most opportune might serve his wiles — and found 
The serpent — subtlest beast of all the field. 

If the reader cast his eye again over this passage, he 
will not find a verse in it which is not varied and har- 
monized in the most remarkable manner. Let him notice 
in particular that curious balancing of the lines in the 
sixth and tenth verses : — 

In with the river sunk, &c. 
and 

Up beyond the river Oh. 

It might, indeed, be objected to the versification of 
Milton, that it exhibits too constant a perfection of this 
kind. It sometimes forces upon us too great a sense of 
consciousness on the part of the composer. We miss the 
first sprightly runnings of verse, — the ease and sweetness 
of spontaneity. Milton, I think, also too often condenses 
weight into heaviness. 

Thus much concerning the chief of our two most 
popular measures. The other, called octosyllabic, or the 
measure of eight syllables, offered such facilities for namby- 
pamby, that it had become a jest as early as the time of 
Shakspeare, who makes Touchstone call it the " butter- 
woman's rate to market," and the " very false gallop of 
verses." It has been advocated, in opposition to the 
heroic measure, upon the ground that ten syllables lead 
a man into epithets and other superfluities, while eight 
syllables compress him into a sensible and pithy gentle- 
man. But the heroic measure laughs at it. So far from 



48 AN ANSWEK, TO THE QUESTION 

compressing, it converts one line into two, and sacrifices 

everything to the quick and importunate return of the 

rhyme. With Dryden compare Gay, even in the strength 

of Gay, — 

The wind was high, the window shakes ; 
With sudden start the miser wakes ; 
Along the silent room he stalks, 

(A miser never " stalks ; " but a rhyme was desired for 
" walks ") 

Looks hack, and trembles as he walks : 
Each lock and every bolt he tries, 
In every creek and corner pries ; 
Then opes the chest with treasure stor'd, 
And stands in rapture o'er his hoard ; 

(" Hoard" and "treasure stor'd" are just made for one 
another,) 

But now, with sudden qualms possess'd, 
He wrings his hands, he heats his breast ; 
By conscience stung, he wildly stares, 
And thus his guilty soul declares. 

And so he denounces his gold, as miser never denounced 
it ; and sighs because 

Virtue resides on earth no more ! 

Coleridge saw the mistake which had been made with 
regard to this measure, and restored it to the beautiful 
freedom of which it was capable, by calling to mind the 
liberties allowed its old musical professors the minstrels, 
and dividing it by time instead of syllables ; — by the beat 
of four, into which you might get as many syllables as you 
could, instead of allotting eight syllables to the poor time, 
whatever it might have to say. He varied it further with 



WHAT IS POETEY? 49 

alternate rhymes and stanzas, with rests and omissions 
precisely analogous to those in music, and rendered it 
altogether worthy to utter the manifold thoughts and 
feelings of himself and his lady Christahel. He even 
ventures, with an exquisite sense of solemn strangeness 
and licence (for there is witchcraft going forward), to 
introduce a couplet of hlank verse, itself as mystically and 
beautifully modulated as anything in the music of (jluck 
or Weber. — 

Tis the middle of night by the castle clock, 

And the owls have awaken'd the crowing cock 

Tu-whit !— Tu-whoo ! 

And hark, again ! the crowing cock, 

How drowsily he crew. 

Sir Leoline, the baron rich, 

Hath a toothless mastiff bitch ; 

From her kennel beneath the rock 

She maketh answer to the clock, 

Four for the quarters and twelve for the hour, 

Ever and aye, by shine and shower, 

Sixteen short howls, not over loud : 

Some say, she sees my lady's shroud. 

Is the night chilly and dark ? 
The night is chilly, but not dark. 
The thin grey cloud is spread on high, 
It covers, but not hides, the sky. 
The moon is behind, and at the full, 
And yet she looks both small and dull. 
The night is chilly, the cloud is grey ; 

(These are not superfluities, but mysterious returns of 

importunate feeling) 

'Tis a month before the month of May, 
And the spring comes slowly ujo this way. 
The lovely lady, Christabel, 
Whom her father loves so well, 



50 AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION 



What makes her in the wood so late, 

A furlong from the castle-gate ? 

She had dreams all yesternight 

Of her own betrothed knight ; ""V 

And she in the midnight wood will pray 

For the weal of her lover that's far away. 



She stole along, she nothing spoke, 
The sighs she heav'd were soft and low, 
Jud nought was green npon the oak, 
But moss and rarest mistletoe ; 
She kneels beneath the huge oak tree, 
And in silence prayeth she. 

The lady sprang up suddenly, 

The lovely lady, Christabel ! 

It moan'd as near as near can be, 

But what it is, she cannot tell. 

On the other side it seems to be 

Of the hiige, broad breasted, old oak tree. 

The night is chill, the forest bare ; 
Is it the wind that moaneth bleak ? 

(Tliis " bleak moaning " is a witch's) 

There is not wind enough in the air 

To move away the ringlet curl 

From the lovely lady's cheek — 

There is not wind enough to twirl 

The one red leaf, the last of Its clan, 

That dances as often as dance it can, 

Hanging so light and hanging so high, 

On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky. 

Hush, beating heart of Christabel ! 
Jesu Maria, shield her well ! 
She folded her arms beneath her cloak, 
And stole to the other side of the oak. 
What sees she there ? 



4 

} 



WHAT IS POETRY ? 51 

There she sees a damsel bright, 
Drest in a robe of silken white, 
That shadowy in the moonlight shone : 
The neck that made that white robe wan, 
Her stately neck and arms were bare : 
Her blne-vein'd feet unsandall'd were ; 
And wildly glitter'd, here and there, 
The gems entangled in her hair. 
I guess 'twas frightful there to see 
A lady so richly clad as she — 
Beautiful exceedingly. 

The principle of Variety in Uniformity is here worked 
out in a style " beyond the reach of art." Everything is 
diversified according to the demand of the moment, of the 
sounds, the sights, the emotions ; the very uniformity of 
the outline is gently varied ; and yet we feel that the ivhole 
is one and of the same character, the single and sweet uncon- 
sciousness of the heroine making all the rest seem more 
conscious, and ghastly, and expectant. It is thus that 
versification itself becomes part of the sentiment of a poem, 
and vindicates the pains that have been taken to show its 
importance. I know of no very fine versification unac- 
companied with fine poetry ) no poetry of a mean order 
accompanied with verse of the highest. 

As to Ehyme, which might be thought too insignificant 
to mention, it is not at all so. The universal consent of 
modern Europe, and of the East in all ages, has made it 
one of the musical beauties of verse for all poetry but epic 
and dramatic, and even for the former with Southern 
Europe, — a sustainment for the enthusiasm, and a demand 
to enjoy. The mastery of it consists in never writing it 
for its own sake, or at least never appearing to do so ; in 



52 AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION 

knowing how to vary it, to give it novelty, to render it 
more or less strong, to divide it (when not in couplets) at 
the proper intervals, to repeat it many times where luxury 
or animal spirits demand it (see an instance in Titania's 
speech to the Fairies), to impress an affecting or startling 
remark with it, and to make it, in comic poetry, a new and 
surprising addition to the jest. 

Large was his bounty and his soul sincere, 
Heav'n did a recompence as largely send ; 

He gave to misery all lie had, a tear ; 
He gain'd from heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) a friend. 

— Gray's Elegy. 

The fops are proud of scandal ; for they cry 
At every lewd, low character, " That's /." 

— Dryden's Prologue to the Pilgrim. 

What makes all doctrines plain and clear ? 

About two hundred pounds a year. 

And that which was proved true before, 

Prove false again ? Two hundred more. — Hudibras 

Compound for sins they are inclind to, 

By damning those they have no mind to. — Id. 

Stor'd with deletery .med'cines, 



Which whosoever took is dead since. — Id. 

Sometimes it is a grace in a master like Butler to force 
his rhyme, thus showing a laughing wilful power over the 
most stubborn materials : — 

Win 

The women, and make them draw in 
The men, as Indians with & female 
Tame elephant inveigle the male. — hi. 



WHAT IS POETRY? 53 

He made an instrument to know 

If the moon shines at full or no ; 

That would, as soon as e'er she shone, straight 

Whether 'twere day or night demonstrate ; 

Tell what her diameter to an inch is, 

And prove that she's not made of green cheese. 

— Hudibras. 

Pronounce it, by all means, grinches, to make the joke 
more wilful. The happiest triple rhyme, perhaps, that 
ever was written, is in Don Juan : — 

But oh ! ye lords of ladies intellectual, 

Inform us truly, — haven't they hen-peck'd you all ? 

The sweepingness of the assumption completes the flowing 
breadth of effect. 

Dryden confessed that a rhyme often gave him a 
thought. Probably the happy word " sprung " in the 
following passage from Ben Jonson was suggested by it ; 
but then the poet must have had the feeling in him : 

— Let our trumpets sound, 
And cleave both air and ground 

With beating of our drums. 
Let every lyre be strung, 
Harp, lute, theorbo, sprung 

With touch of dainty thumbs. 

Boileau's trick for appearing to rhyme naturally was 
to compose the second line of his couplet first ! which 
gives one the crowning idea of the " artificial school of 
poetry." Perhaps the most perfect master of rhyme, the 
easiest and most abundant, was the greatest writer of 
comedy that the world has seen, — Moliere. 

If a young reader should ask, after all, What is the 
quickest way of knowing bad poets from good, the best 



54 AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION 

poets from the next best, and so on ? the answer is, the 
only and twofold way : first, the perusal of the best poets 
with the greatest attention ; and, second, the cultivation 
of that love of truth and beauty which made them what 
they are. Every true reader of poetry partakes a more 
than ordinary portion of the poetic nature; and no one 
can be completely such, who does not love, or take an 
interest in, everything that interests the poet, from the 
firmament to the daisy, — from the highest heart of man to 
the most pitiable of the low. It is a good practice to read 
with pen in hand, marking what is liked or doubted. It 
rivets the attention, realizes the greatest amount of enjoy- 
ment, and facilitates reference. It enables the reader also, 
from time to time, to see what progress he makes with his 
own mind, and how it grows up towards the stature of its 
exalter. 

(/ If the same person should ask, What class of poetry ■ 
is the highest ? I should say, undoubtedly, the Epic ; for 
it includes the drama, with narration besides ; or the 
speaking and action of the characters, with the speaking 
of the poet himself, whose utmost address is taxed to 
relate all well for so long a time, particularly in the 
passages least sustained by enthusiasm. Whether this 
class has included the greatest poet, is another question 
still under trial ; for Shakspeare perplexes all such verdicts, 
even when the claimant is Homer ; though, if a judgment 
may be drawn from his early narratives (Venus and Adonis, 
and the Raj>e of Lucrece), it is to be doubted whether even 
Shakspeare could have told a story like Homer, owing to 
that incessant activity and superfoetation of thought, a 



WHAT IS POETRY ? 55 

little less of which might be occasionally desired even in 
his plays ; — if it were possible, once possessing anything 
of his, to wish it away. Next to Homer and Shakspeare 
come such narrators as the less universal, but still intenser 
Dante ; Milton, with his dignified imagination ; the uni- 
versal, profoundly simple Chaucer ; and luxuriant, remote 
Spenser — immortal child in poetry's most poetic solitudes : 
then the great second-rate dramatists ; unless those who 
are better acquainted with Greek tragedy than I am, 
demand a place for them before Chaucer : then the airy 
yet robust universality of Ariosto ; the hearty, out-of-door 
nature of Theocritus, also a universalist ; the finest lyrical 
poets (who only take short flights, compared with the 
narrators) ; the purely contemplative poets who have more 
thought than feeling ; the descriptive, satirical, didactic, 
epigrammatic. It is to be borne in mind, however, that 
the first poet of an inferior class may be superior to fol- 
lowers in the train of a higher one, though the superiority 
is by no means to be taken for granted ; otherwise Pope 
would be superior to Fletcher, and Butler to Pope. Imagi- 
nation, teeming with action, and character, makes the 
greatest poets ; feeling and thought the next ; fancy (by 
itself) the next ; wit the last. Thought by itself makes 
no poet at all; for the mere conclusions of the under- 
standing can at best be only so many intellectual matters 
of fact. Feeling, even destitute of conscious thought, 
stands a far better poetical chance ; feeling being a sort of 
thought without the process of thinking, — a grasper of the 
truth without seeing it. And what is very remarkable, 
feeling seldom makes the blunders that thought does. An 



56 AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION 

idle distinction has been made between taste and judg- 
ment. Taste is the very maker of judgment. Put an 
artificial fruit in your mouth, or only handle it, and you 
will soon perceive the difference between judging from 
taste or tact, and judging from the abstract figment called 
judgment. The latter does but throw you into guesses 
and doubts. Hence the conceits that astonish us in the 
gravest, and even subtlest thinkers, whose taste is not pro- 
portionate to their mental perceptions : men like Donne, 
for instance ; who, apart from accidental personal impres- 
sions, seem to look at nothing as it really is, but only as 
to what may be thought of it. Hence, on the other hand, 
the delightfulness of those poets who never violate truth 
of feeling, whether in things real or imaginary ; who are 
always consistent with their object and its requirements ; 
and who run the great round of nature, not to perplex and 
be perplexed, but to make themselves and us happy. And 
luckily, delightfulness is not incompatible with greatness, 
willing soever as men may be in their present imperfect 
state to set the power to subjugate above the power to 
please. Truth, of any great kind whatsoever, makes great 
writing. This is the reason why such poets as Ariosto, 
though not writing with a constant detail of thought and 
feeling like Dante, are justly considered great as well as 
delightful. Their greatness proves itself by the same 
truth of nature, and sustained power, though in a different 
way. Their action is not so crowded and weighty ; their 
sphere has more territories less fertile ; but it has enchant- 
ments of its own, which excess of thought would spoil, — 
luxuries, laughing graces, animal spirits ; and not to 



WHAT IS POETRY? 57 

recognize the beauty and greatness of these, treated as 
they treat them, is simply to be defective in sympathy. 
Every planet is not Mars or Saturn. There is also Yenus 
and Mercury. There is one genius of the south, and 
another of the north, and others uniting both. The reader 
who is too thoughtless or too sensitive to like intensity of 
any sort, and he who is too thoughtful or too dull to like 
anything but the greatest possible stimulus of reflection or 
passion, are equally wanting in complexional fitness for a 
thorough enjoyment of books. Ariosto occasionally says 
as fine things as Dante, and Spenser as Shakspeare ; but 
the business of both is to enjoy ; and in order to partake 
their enjoyment to its full extent, you must feel what 
poetry is in the general as well as the particular, must be 
aware that there are different songs of the spheres, some 
fuller of notes, and others of a sustained delight ; and as 
the former keep you perpetually alive to thought or 
passion, so from the latter you receive a constant har- 
monious sense of truth and beauty, more agreeable per- 
haps on the whole, though less exciting. Ariosto, for 
instance, does not tell a story with the brevity and concen- 
trated passion of Dante ; every sentence is not so full of 
matter, nor the style so removed from the indifference of 
prose ; yet you are charmed with a truth of another sort, 
equally characteristic of the writer, equally drawn from 
nature and substituting a healthy sense of enjoyment for 
intenser emotion. Exclusiveness of liking for this or that 
mode of truth, only shows, either that a reader's percep- 
tions are limited, or that he would sacrifice truth itself to 
his favourite form of it. Sir Walter Ealeigh, who was as 



58 AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION 

trenchant with his pen as his sword, hailed the Faerie 
Queene of his friend Spenser in verses in which he said 
that Petrarch was thenceforward to he no more heard of ; 
and that in all English poetry there was nothing he 
counted " of any price" but the effusions of the nevv 
author. Yet Petrarch is still living ; Chaucer was not 
abolished by Sir Walter ; and Shakspeare is thought some- 
what valuable. A botanist might as well have said, that 
myrtles and oaks were to disappear, because acacias had 
come up. It is with the poet's creations, as with Nature's, 
great or small. Wherever truth and beauty, whatever 
their amount, can be worthily shaped into verse, and 
answer to some demand for it in our hearts, there poetry 
is to be found ; whether in productions grand and beautiful 
as some great event, or some mighty, leafy solitude, or no 
bigger and more pretending than a sweet face or a bunch 
of violets ; whether in Homer's epic or Gray's Elegy, in 
the enchanted gardens of Ariosto and Spenser, or the very 
pot-herbs of the Schoolmistress of Shenstone, the balms 
of the simplicity of a cottage. Not to know and feel this, 
is to be deficient in the universality of Nature herself, who 
is a poetess on the smallest as well as the largest scale, 
and who calls upon us to admire all her productions ; not 
indeed with the same degree of admiration, but with no 
refusal of it, except to defect. 

I cannot draw this essay towards its conclusion better 
than with three memorable words of Milton ; who has said, 
that poetry, in comparison with science, is " simple, sen- 
suous, and passionate." By simple, he means unperplexed 
and self-evident ; by sensuous, genial and full of imagery ; 



WHAT IS POETRY ? 69 

by passionate, excited and enthusiastic. I am aware that 
different constructions have been put on some of these 
words ; but the context seems to me to necessitate those 
before us. I quote, however, not from the original, but 
from an extract in the Remarks on Paradise Lost by 
Richardson. 

What the poet has to cultivate above all things is love 
and truth ; — what be has to avoid, like poison, is the 
fleeting and the false. He will get no good by proposing 
to be "in earnest at the moment." His earnestness must 
be innate and habitual; born with him, and felt to be 
his most precious inheritance. " I expect neither profit 
nor general fame by my writings," says Coleridge, in the 
Preface to his Poems; "and I consider myself as having 
been amply repaid without either. Poetry has been to me 
its ' own exceeding great 'reward ; ' it has soothed my 
afflictions ; it has multiplied and refined my enjoyments ; 
it has endeared solitude ; and it has given me the habit 
of wishing to discover the good and the beautiful in all 
that meets and surrounds me." — Pickering's edition, p. 10. 

" Poetry," says Shelley, " lifts the veil from the hidden 
beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they 
tuere not familiar. It reproduces all that it represents ; 
and the impersonations clothed in its Elysian light stand 
thenceforward in the minds of those who have once con- 
templated them, as memorials of that gentle and exalted 
content which extends itself over all thoughts and actions 
with which it co-exists. The great secret of morals is 
love, or a going out of our own nature, and an identifica- 
tion of ourselves with the beautiful which exists in thought, 



60 AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION 

action, or person, not our own. A man, to be greatly 
good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively ; he 
must put himself in the place of another, and of many 
others : the pains and pleasures of his species must 
become his own. The great instrument of moral good is 
imagination ; and poetry administers to the effect by acting 
upon the cause." — Essays and Letters, vol. i. p. 16. 

I would not willingly say anything after perorations 
like these ; but as treatises on poetry may chance to have 
auditors who think themselves called upon to vindicate 
the superiority of what is termed useful knowledge, it may 
be as well to add, that if the poet may be allowed to pique 
himself on any one thing more than another, compared 
with those who undervalue him, it is on that power of 
undervaluing nobody, and no attainments different from 
his own, which is given him by the very faculty of imagina- 
tion they despise. The greater includes the less. They 
do not see that their inability to comprehend him argues 
the smaller capacity. No man recognizes the worth of 
utility more than the poet : he only desires that the 
meaning of the term may not come short of its greatness, 
and exclude the noblest necessities of his fellow-creatures. 
He is quite as much pleased, for instance, with the faci- 
lities for rapid conveyance afforded him by the railroad, as 
the dullest confiner of its advantages to that single idea, 
or as the greatest two-idea'd man who varies that single 
idea with hugging himself on his " buttons " or his good 
dinner. But he sees also the beauty of the country 
through which he passes, of the towns, of the heavens, 
of the steam-engine itself, thundering and fuming along 



WHAT IS POETRY? 61 

like a magic horse, of the affections that are carrying, 
perhaps, half the passengers on their journey, nay, ot 
those of the great two-idea'd man ; and, heyond all this, he 
discerns the incalculable amount of good, and knowledge, 
and refinement, and mutual consideration, which this won- 
derful invention is fitted to circulate over the globe, 
perhaps to the displacement of war itself, and certainly to 
the diffusion of millions of enjoyments. 

" And a button-maker, after all, invented it ! " cries 
our friend. 

Pardon me — it was a nobleman. A button -maker 
may be a very excellent, and a very poetical man too, and 
yet not have been the first man visited by a sense of the 
gigantic powers of the combination of water and fire. It 
was a nobleman who first thought of this most poetical bit 
of science. It was a nobleman who first thought of it, — 
a captain who first tried it, — and a button-maker who 
perfected it. And he who put the nobleman on such 
thoughts, was the great philosopher, Bacon, who said 
that poetry had " something divine in it," and was neces- 
sary to the satisfaction of the human mind. 



SPENSER. 

BORN, PROBABLY ABOUT THE YEAR 1553 — 
DIED, 1598. 



Three things must be conceded to the objectors against 
this divine poet : first, that he wrote a good deal of 
allegory ; second, that he has a great many superfluous 
words ; third, that he was very fond of alliteration. He 
is accused also (by little boys) of obsolete words and 
spelling ; and it must be added, that he often forces his 
rhymes ; nay, spells them in an arbitrary manner on 
purpose to make them fit. In short, he has a variety of 
faults, real or supposed, that would be intolerable in 
writers in general. This is true. The answer is, that 
his genius not only makes amends for all, but overlays 
them, and makes them beautiful, with " riches flneless." 
When acquaintance with him is once begun, he repels 
none but the anti-poetical. Others may not be able to 
read him continuously ; but more or less, and as an 
enchanted stream " to dip into," they will read him 
always. 

In Spenser's time, orthography was unsettled. Pro- 
nunciation is always so. The great poet, therefore, some- 



SPENSER. 63 

times spells his words, whether rhymed or otherwise, in a 
manner apparently arbitrary, for the purpose of inducing 
the reader to give them the sound fittest for the sense. 
Alliteration, which, as a ground of melody, had been a 
principle in Anglo-Saxon verse, continued such a favourite 
with old English poets whom Spenser loved, that, as late 
as the reign of Edward III., it stood in the- place of 
rhyme itself. Our author turns it to beautiful account. 
Superfluousness, though eschewed with a fine instinct by 
Chaucer in some of his latest works, where the narrative 
was fullest of action and character, abounded in his others ; 
and, in spite of the classics, it had not been recog- 
nized as a fault in Spenser's time, when books were still 
rare, and a writer thought himself bound to pour out all 
he felt and knew. It accorded also with his genius ; and 
in him is not an excess of weakness, but of will and luxury. 
And as to allegory, it was not only the taste of the day, 
originating in gorgeous pageants of church and state, but 
in Spenser's hands it became such an embodiment of 
poetry itself, that its objectors really deserve no better 
answer than has been given, them by Mr. Hazlitt, who 
asks, if they thought the allegory would " bite them." 
The passage will be found a little further on. 

Spenser's great characteristic is poetic luxury. If 
you go to him for a story, you will be disappointed ; if 
for a style, classical or concise, the point against him 
is conceded; if for pathos, you must weep for person- 
ages half-real and too beautiful ; if for mirth, you must 
laugh out of good breeding, and because it pleaseth the 
great, sequestered man to be facetious. But if you love 



64 SPENSEK. 

poetry well enough to enjoy it for its own sake, let no evil 
reports of his " allegory " deter you from his acquaintance, 
for great will be your loss. His allegory itself is but one 
part allegory, and nine parts beauty and enjoyment ; some- 
times an excess of flesh and blood. His forced rhymes, 
and his sentences written to fill up, which in a less poet 
would be intolerable, are accompanied with such endless 
grace and dreaming pleasure, fit to 

Make heaven drowsy with the harmony, 

that although it is to be no more expected of anybody to 
read him through at once, than to wander days and nights 
in a forest, thinking of nothing else, yet any true lover of 
poetry, when he comes to know him, would as soon quarrel 
with repose on the summer grass. You may get up and 
go away, but will return next day at noon to listen to his 
waterfalls, and to see, " with half-shut eye," his visions ®f 
knights and nymphs, his gods and goddesses, whom he 
brought down again to earth in immortal beauty. 

Spenser, in some respects, is more southern than the 
south itself. Dante, but for the covered heat which occa- 
sionally concentrates the utmost sweetness as well as 
venom, would be quite northern compared with him. He 
is more luxurious than Ariosto or Tasso, more haunted 
with the presence of beauty. His wholesale poetical belief, 
mixing up all creeds and mythologies, but with less 
violence, resembles that of Dante and Boccaccio ; and it 
gives the compound the better warrant in the more agree- 
able impression. Then his versification is almost perpetual 
honey. 



SPENSEB. 65 

Spenser is the farthest removed from the ordinary 
cares and haunts of the world of all the poets that ever 
wrote, except perhaps Ovid ; and this, which is the reason 
why mere men of business and the world do not like him, 
constitutes his most bewitching charm with the poetical. 
He is not so great a poet as Shakspeare or Dante ; — he 
has less imagination, though more fancy, than Milton. 
He does not see things so purely in their elements as 
Dante ; neither can he combine their elements like Shak- 
speare, nor bring such frequent intensities of words, or of 
wholesale imaginative sympathy, to bear upon his subject 
as any one of them ; though he has given noble diffuser 
instances of the latter in his Una, and his Mammon, and 
his accounts of Jealousy and Despair. 

But when you are " over-informed " with thought and 
passion in Shakspeare, when Milton's mighty grandeurs 
oppress you, or are found mixed with painful absurdities, 
or when the world is vexatious and tiresome, and you have 
had enough of your own vanities or struggles in it, or 
when " house and land " themselves are " gone and 
spent," and your riches must lie in the regions of the 
" unknown," then Spenser is " most excellent." His 
remoteness from everyday life is the reason perhaps why 
Somers and Chatham admired him ; and his possession of 
every kind of imaginary wealth completes his charm with 
his brother poets. Take him in short for what he is, 
whether greater or less than his fellows, the poetical 
faculty is so abundantly and beautifully predominant in 
him above every other, though he had passion, and 
thought, and plenty of ethics, and was as learned a man 

5 



6G SPENSER. 

as Ben Jonson, perhaps as Milton himself, that he has 
always heen felt by his countrymen to be what Charles 
Lamb called him, the " Poet's Poet." He has had more 
idolatry and imitation from his brethren than all the rest 
put together. The old undramatic poets, Drayton, Browne, 
Drummond, Giles and Phineas Fletcher, were as full of 
him as the dramatic were of Shakspeare. Milton studied 
and used him, calling him the " sage and serious 
Spenser; " and adding, that he " dared be known to think 
him a better teacher than Scotus or Aquinas." Cowley said 
that he became a poet by reading him. Dryden claimed 
him for a master. Pope said he read him with as much 
pleasure when he was old, as young. Collins and Gray loved 
him ; Thomson, Shenstone, and a host of inferior writers, 
expressly imitated him ; Burns, Byron, Shelley, and Keats 
made use of his stanza ; Coleridge eulogized him ; and he 
is as dear to the best living poets as he was to their prede- 
cessors. Spenser has stood all the changes in critical 
opinion ; all the logical and formal conclusions of the 
understanding, as opposed to imagination and lasting sym- 
pathy. Hobbes in vain attempted to depose him in favour 
of Davenant's Gondibert. Locke and his friend Molyneux 
to no purpose preferred Blackmore ! Hume, acute and 
encroaching philosopher as he was, but not so universal in 
his philosophy as great poets, hurt Spenser's reputation 
with none but the French (who did not know him) ; and, 
by way of involuntary amends for the endeavour, he set up 
for poets such men as Wilkie and Blacklock ! In vain, in 
vain. " In spite of philosophy and fashion," says a better 
critic of that day (Bishop Hurd), " Faerie Spenser still 



SPENSBE. 67 

ranks highest amongst the poets ; I mean with all those 
who are either of that house, or have any kindness for it. 
Earth-born critics may blaspheme ; 

But all the gods are ravish'd with delight 
Of his celestial song and musick's wondrous might." 
— Remarks on the Plan and Conduct of the Faerie Queene (in Todd's 
edition of Spenser, vol. ii. p. 183). 

"In reading Spenser," says Warton, "if the critic is 
not satisfied, yet the reader is transported." — (Id. p. 65.) 

" Spenser," observes Coleridge, "has the wit of the 
southern, with the deeper inwardness of the northern 
genius. Take especial note of the marvellous independ- 
ence and true imaginative absence of all particular space 
or time in the Faerie Queene. It is in the domains 
neither of history nor geography : it is ignorant of all 
artificial boundary, all material obstacles; it is truly in 
land of Faerie, that is, of mental space. The poet has 
placed you in a dream, a charmed sleep : and you neither 
wish nor have the power to inquire, where you are, or how 
you got there." — Literary Remains, vol. i. p. 94. 

"In reading the Faerie Queene," says Hazlitt, "you 
see a little withered old man by a wood-side opening a 
wicket, a giant, and a dwarf lagging far behind, a damsel 
in a boat upon an enchanted lake, wood-nymphs and 
satyrs ; and all of a sudden you are transported into a 
lofty palace, with tapers burning, amidst knights and 
ladies, with dance and revelry, and song, ' and mask and 
antique pageantry.' — But some people will say that all this 
may be very fine, but they cannot understand it on account 
of the allegory. They are afraid of the allegory, as if they 



68 SPENSER. 

thought it would bite them ; they look at it as a child 
looks at a painted dragon, and think that it will strangle 
them in its shining folds. This is very idle. If they do 
not meddle with the allegory, the allegory will not meddle 
with them. Without minding it at all, the whole is as 
plain as a pike-staff. It might as well be pretended, that 
we cannot see Poussin's pictures for the allegory, as that 
the allegory prevents us from understanding Spenser." — 
Lectures on the English Poets (Templeman's edition, 
12mo p. 67). 



ABCHIMAGO'S HERMITAGE, 

AND 
THE HOUSE OF MORPHEUS. 

Archimago, a hypocritical magician, lures Una and the Red-cross 
Knight into his abode ; and while they are asleep, sends to 
Morpheus, the god of sleep, for a false dream to produce discord 
between them. 

A little lowly hermitage it ivas, 
Down in a dale, hard by a forest's side, 
Far from resort of people that did pass 
In travel to and fro : a little wide^ 
There was a holy chapel edifyde, 
"Wherein the hermit duly wont to say 
His holy things each morn and eventide : 
Thereby a crystal stream did gently play, 
• Which from a sacred fountain welled forth alway. ( ! ) 

Arrived there, the little house they fill, ( 2 ) 
Nor look for entertainment where none was : ( 3 ) 
Rest is their feast, and all things at their will : 
The noblest mind the best contentment has. {') 



SPENSER. 69 

With fair discourse the evening so they pass, 
i'or that old man of pleasing words had store, 
And well could file his tongue as smooth as glass : 
He told of saints and popes, and evermore 
He strow'd an Ave-Mary after and before. 

The drooping night thus creepeth on them fast ; 
And the sad humour, loading their eye-lids, 
As messenger of Morpheus, on them cast 
Sweet slumbering dew ; the which to sleep them bids. 
Unto their lodgings then Ms guests he rids ; 
Where, when all drown'd in deadly sleep he finds, 
He to his study goes ; and there amids 
His magic books, and arts of sundry kinds, 
He seeks out mighty charms to trouble sleepy minds. 

Then choosing out few words most horrible 
(Let none them read .') ( 5 ) thereof did verses frame ; 
With which, and other spells like terrible, 
He bade awake black Pluto's grisly dame ; 
And cursed Heaven ; and spake reproachful shame 
Of highest God, the Lord of life and light : 
A bold bad man ! that dar'd to call by name 
Great Gorgon, ( 6 ) prince of darkness and dead night ; 
At which Cocytus quakes, and Styx is put to flight. 

And forth he call'd out of deep darkness dread 
Legions of sprites, thef which, like little flies, ( 7 ) 
Fluttering about his ever-damned head, 
Await whereto their service he applies ; 
To aid his friends, or fray his enemies ; 
Of those he chose out two, the falsest two, 
And fittest for to forge true-seeming lies ; 
The one of them he gave a message to, 
The other by himself stay'd other work to do. 

He, making speedy way through spersed air, 
And through the world of waters wide and deep, (*) 
To Morpheus' house doth hastily repair. ( 9 ) 
Amid the bowels of the earth full steep 



70 SPENSER. 

And low, where dawning day dotli never peep, 
His dwelling is ; there Tetliys his wet bed 
Both ever wash, and Cynthia still doth steep 
In silver dew his ever-drooping head, 
"While sad Night over him her mantle black doth spread. 

"Whose double gates he findeth locked fast ; 
The one fair fram'd of burnish'd ivory, 
The other all with silver overcast ; 
And wakeful dogs before them, far do lie, 
Watching to banish Care their enemy, 
Who oft is wont to trouble gentle Sleep. 
By them the sprite doth pass in quietly, 
And unto Morpheus comes, whom drowned deep 
In drowsy fit he finds : of nothing he takes keep. 



*\ 



And more to lull him in his slumber soft, 
A trickling stream from high rock tumbling down 
And ever- drizzling rain upon the loft, 
Mixd with a murmuring wind, much like the soun 
Of swarming bees, did cast him in a swoun : 
No other noise, nor peoples troublous cries, 
As still are wont to annoy the walled town, 
Might there be heard ; but careless Quiet lies 
Wrapt in eternal silence, far from enemies. ( 10 ) 

The messenger approaching to him spake ; 
But his waste words return'd to him in vain : 
So sound he slept, that nought might him awake. 
Then rudely he him thrust, and push'd with pain, 
Whereat he gan to stretch : but he again 
Shook him so hard, that forced him to speak. 
As one then in a dream, whose drier brain 
Is tost with troubled sights and fancies weak, 
He mumbled soft, but would not all his silence break. 

The sprite then gan more boldly him to wake, 
And threaten'd unto him the dreaded name 
Of Hecate : whereat he gan to quake, 
And lifting up his lumpish head, with blame 



SPENSEK. 71 

Half angry asked him, for what he came. 
" Hither," quoth he, " me Arch imago sent ; 
He that the stubborn sprites can wisely tame ; 
He bids thee to him send for his intent 
A fit false dream, that can delude the sleeper's sent." (") 

The god obey'd ; and calling forth straightway 
A diverse Dream ( 12 ) out of his prison dark, 
Deliver'd it to him, and down did lay 
His heavy head, devoid of careful cark ; 
"Whose senses all were straight benumb'd and stark. 
He, back returning by the ivory door, 
Remounted up as light as cheerful lark ; 
And on his little wings the Dream he bore 
In haste unto his lord, where he Mm left afore. 



Q) Welled forth alway. 

The modulation of this charming stanza is exquisite. 

Let us divide it into its pauses, and see what we have heen 

hearing : — 

A little lowly hermitage it was, | 
Down in a dale, | hard by a forest's side, | 
Far from resort of people | that did pass 
In travel to and fro : | a little wide | 
There was a holy chapel edifyde, | 
Wherein the hermit duly wont to say 
His holy things | each morn and eventide : | 
Thereby a crystal stream did gently play, | 
Which from a sacred fountain welled forth alway. 

Mark the variety of the pauses, of the accentuation of 
the syllahles, and of the intonation of the vowels ; all 
closing in that exquisite last line, as soft and continuous 
as the water it describes. The repetition of the words 
little and holy add to the sacred snugness of the abode. 



72 SPENSER. 

We are to fancy the little tenement on the skirts of a 
forest, that is to say, within, but not deeply within, the 
trees ; the chapel is near it, but not close to it, more 
embowered; and the rivulet may be supposed to circuit 
both chapel and hermitage, running partly under the trees 
between mossy and flowery banks, for hermits were great 
cullers of simples; and though Archimago was a false 
hermit, we are to suppose him living in a true hermitage. 
It is one of those pictures which remain for ever in the 
memory ; and the succeeding stanza is worthy of it. 

(*) Arrived there, the little house they Jill. 
Not literally the house, but the apartment as a speci- 
men of the house ; for we see by what follows that the 
hermitage must have contained at least four rooms : one 
in which the knight and the lady were introduced, two 
more for their bed-chambers, and a fourth for the magi- 
cian's study. 

( 3 ) Nor look for entertainment where none was. 

" Entertainment " is here used in the restricted sense 
of treatment as regards food and accommodation ; accord- 
ing to the old inscription over inn-doors — " Entertainment 
for man and horse." 

( 4 ) The nohlest mind the test contentment has. 

This is one of Spenser's many noble sentiments 
expressed in as noble single lines, as if made to be 
recorded in the copy-books of full-grown memories. As, 
for example, one which he is fond of repeating : — 



SPENSEE. 73 

Nn service loathsome to a gentle mind. 
Entire affection scorneth nicer hands. 
True love loathes disdainful nicety. 

And that fine Alexandrine, — 

Weak body well is chang'd for mind's redoubled force. 

And another, which Milton has imitated in Comus — 
Virtue gives herself light in darkness for to wade, 

( 6 ) (Let none them read !) 
As if we could ! And yet while we smile at the 
impossibility, we delight in this solemn injunction of the 
Poet's, so child-like, and full of the imaginative sense of 
the truth of what he is saying. 

(•) A bold bad man ! that dard to call by name 
Great Gorgon. 

This is the ineffable personage whom Milton, wdth a 

propriety equally classical and poetical, designates as 

.... The dreaded name 
Of Demogorgon. — Par. Lost, book ii. v. 965. 

Ancient believers apprehended such dreadful conse- 
quences from the mention of him, that his worst and most 
potent invokers are represented as fearful of it ; nor am I 
aware that any poet, Greek or Latin, has done it, though 
learned commentators on Spenser imply otherwise. In 
the passages they allude to, in Lucan and Statins, there is 
no name uttered. The adjuration is always made by a 
periphrasis. This circumstance is noticed by Boccaccio, 
who has given by far the best, and indeed, I believe, 
the only account of this very rare god, except what is 



74 SPENSEB. 

abridged from his pages in a modern Italian mythology, 
and furnished by his own authorities, Lactantius and 
Theodantus, the latter an author now lost. Ben Jonson 
calls him "Boccaccio's Demogorgon." The passage is in 
the first book of his Genealogie Deorum, a w r ork of prodi- 
gious erudition for that age, and full of the gusto of a man 
of genius. According to Boccaccio, Demogorgon (Spirit 
Earihivorker) was the great deity of the rustical Arcadians, 
and the creator of all things out of brute matter. He 
describes him as a pale and sordid-looking wretch, inhabit- 
ing the centre of the earth, all over moss and dirt, squa- 
lidly wet, and emitting an earthy smell ; and he laughs at 
the credulity of the ancients in thinking to make a god of 
such a fellow. He is very glad, however, to talk about him ; 
and doubtless had a lurking respect for him, inasmuch as 
mud and dirt are among the elements of things material, 
and therefore partake of a certain mystery and divineness. 

C) Legions of sprites, the which, like little flies. 
Flies are old embodiments of evil spirits ; — Anacreon 
forbids us to call them incarnations, in reminding us that 
insects are fleshless and bloodless, avai/nocrapKa. Beelze- 
bub signifies the Lord of Flies. 

( 8 ) The world of waters wide and deep. 
How complete a sense of the ocean under one of its 
aspects ! Spenser had often been at sea, and his pictures 
of it, or in connexion with it, are frequent and fine accord- 
ingly, superior perhaps to those of any other English 
poet, Milton certainly, except in that one famous imagina- 



SPENSER. 



75 



tive passage in which he describes a fleet at a distance as 
seeming to " hang in the clouds." And Shakspeare throws 
himself wonderfully into a storm at sea, as if he had been 
in the thick of it ; though it is not known that he ever 
quitted the land. But nobody talks so much about the 
sea, or its inhabitants, or its voyagers, as Spenser. He 
was well acquainted with the Irish Channel. Coleridge 
observes (ut sup.), that " one of Spenser's arts is that of 
alliteration, which he uses with great effect in doubling 
the impression of an image." The verse above noticed is 
a beautiful example. 

( 9 ) To Morpheus' house doth hastily repair, &c. 
Spenser's earth is not the Homeric earth, a circular 
flat, or disc, studded with mountains, and encompassed with 
the " ocean stream." Neither is it in all cases a globe. 
We must take his cosmography as we find it, and as he. 
wants it; that is to say, poetically, and according to. the 
feeling required by the matter in hand. In the present 
instance, we are to suppose a precipitous country striking 
gloomily and far downwards to a cavernous sea- shore, in 
which the bed of Morpheus is placed, the ends of its 
curtains dipping and fluctuating in the water, which 
reaches it from underground. The door is towards a flat 
on the land-side, with dogs lying " far before it ; " and the 
moonbeams reach it, though the sun never does. The 
passage is imitated from Ovid (lib. ii. ver. 592), but with 
wonderful concentration, and superior home appeal to the 
imagination. Ovid will have no dogs, nor any sound at 
all but that of Lethe rippling over its pebbles. Spenser 



76 SPENSER. 

lias dogs, but afar off, and a lulling sound overhead of wind 
and rain. These are the sounds that men deZight to hear 
in the intervals of their own sleep. 

( I0 ) Wrapt in eternal silence, far from enemies. 
The modulation of this most beautiful stanza (perfect, 
except for the word tumbling) is equal to that of the one 
describing the hermitage, and not the less so for being 
less varied both in pauses and in vowels, the subject 
demanding a greater monotony. A poetical reader need 
hardly be told, that he should humour such verses with a 
corresponding tone in the recital. Indeed it is difficult to 
read them without lowering or deepening the voice, as 
though we were going to bed ourselves, or thinking of the 
rainy night that has lulled us. A long rest at the haj)py 
pause in the last line, and then a strong accent on the 
word/ar, put us in possession of all the remoteness of the 
scene ; — and it is improved, if we make a similar pause at 
heard : — 

No other noise, or people's troublous cries, 
As still are wont to annoy the walled town, 
Might there be heard ; — but careless Quiet lies 
Wrapt in eternal silence,— -far from enemies. 

Upton, one of Spenser's commentators, in reference to 

the trickling stream, has quoted in his note on this passage 

some fine lines from Chaucer, in which, describing the 

" dark valley" of Sleep, the poet says there was nothing 

whatsoever in the place, save that 

.... A few wells 
Came running fro the clyffes adowne. 
That made a deadly sleeping sowne. 



SPENSEB. 77 

Soivne (in the old spelling) is also Spenser's word. In the 
text of the present volume it is written souii , to show that 
it is the same as the word sound without the d ; — like the 
French and Italian, son, suono. 

" 'Tis hardly possible," says Upton, " for a more 
picturesque description to come from a poet or a painter 
than this whole magical scene." — -See Todd's Variorum 
Spenser, vol. ii. p. 38. 

Meantime, the magician has been moulding a shape of 
air to represent the virtuous mistress of the knight ; and 
when the Dream arrives, he sends them both to deceive 
him, the one sitting by his head and abusing " the organs 
of his fancy " (as Milton says of the devil with Eve), and 
the other behaving in a manner very unlike her prototype. 
The delusion succeeds for a time. 

( u ) A Jit false dream, that can delude the sleeper's sent. 
Scent, sensation, perception. Skinner says that sent, 
which we falsely write scent, is derived a sentienclo. The 
word is thus frequently spelt by Spenser. — Todd. 

( 12 ) A diverse Dream. 

" A dream," says Upton, " that would occasion diversity 

or distraction ; or a frightful, hideous dream, from the 

Italian, sogno diverso." — Dante, Inferno, canto vi. 

Cerbero, fiera crudele e diversa. 

(Cerberus, the fierce beast, cruel and diverse.) 

Berni, Orlando Jnnamorato, lib. i. canto 4, stanza 66. 

Un grido orribile e diverse-. 

(There rose a cry, horrible and diverse), &c. 

— See Todd's Edition, as above, p. 42. 



78 



SPENSEE. 



The obvious sense, however, as in the case of Dante's 
Cerberus, I take to be monstrously varied, — inconsistent 
with itself. The dream is to make the knight's mistress 
contradict her natural character. 



THE CAVE OF MAMMON 



GARDEN OF PROSERPINE. 

Sir Guyon, crossing a desert, finds Mammon sitting amidst his gold 
in a gloomy valley. Mammon, taking him down into his cave, 
tempts him with the treasures there, and also with those in the 
Garden of Proserpine. 

" Spenser's strength," says Hazlitt, " is not strength 

of will or action, of bone and muscle, nor is it coarse and 

palpable ; but it assumes a character of vastness and 

sublimity seen through the same visionary medium " (he 

has just been alluding to one), "and blended with the 

appalling associations of preternatural agency. We need 

only turn in proof of this to the Cave of Despair, or the 

Cave of Mammon, or to the account of the change of 

Malbecco into Jealousy." — Lectures, p. 77. 

That house's form within was rude and strong, ( 13 ) 
Like a huge cave hewn out of rocky clift, 
From whose rough vault the ragged breaches hung 
Emboss 'd with massy gold of glorious gift, 
And with rich metal loaded every rift, 
That heavy ruin they did seem to threat ; 
And over them Arachne high did lift 
Her cunning web, and spread her subtle net, 
Enwrapped in foul smoke and clouds more black than jet. 



SPENSEE. 79 

Both roof, and floor, and ivalls, were all of gold, 
But overgrown with dust and old decay, 
And bid in darkness, that none could behold 
The hue thereof; for view of cheerful day- 
Did never in that house itself display ; 
But a faint shadow of uncertain light, 
Such as a lamp whose life does fade away ; 
Or as the moon, clothed with cloudy night, 

show to him that walks in fear and sad affright. 



In all that room was nothing to be seen 
But huge great iron chests, and coffers strong, 
All barr'd with double bends, that none could ween 
Them to enforce by violence or wrong ; 
On every side they placed were along. 
But all the ground with skulls was scattered, 
And dead men's bones, which round about were flung 
Whose lives, it seemed, whilome there were shed, 
And their vile carcases now left unburied. 

They forward pass, nor Guyon yet spake word, 
Till that they came unto an iron door, 
Which to them opened of its own accord, 
And show'd of riches such exceeding store 
As eye of man did never see before, 
Nor ever could within one place be found, 
Though all the wealth which is, or was of yore, 
Could gathered be through all the world around, 
And that above were added to that under ground. 

The charge thereof unto a covetous sprite 
Commanded was, who thereby did attend, 
And warily awaited, day and night, 
From other covetous fiends it to defend, 
Who it to rob and ransack did intend. 
Then Mammon, turning to that warrior, said : 
'* Lo here the worlde's bliss ! lo here the end, 
To which all men do aim, rich to be made ! 
Such grace now to be happy is before thee laid." 



80 SPENSEK. 

" Certes," said lie, " I n'ill thine offered grace, ( M ) 
Nor to be made so happy do intend. 
Another bliss before mine eyes I place, 
Another happiness, another end : 
To them that list, these base regards I lend ; 
But I in arms, and in achievements brave, 
Do rather choose my fitting hours to spend, 
And to be lord of those that riches have, 
Than them to have myself, and be their servile slave." 
* * * * 

The Knight is led further on, and shown more trea- 
sures, and afterwards taken into the palace of Ambition ; 
but all in vain. 

Mammon emmoved was with inward wrath ; 
Yet forcing it to fain, him forth thence led, 
Through griesly shadows, by a beaten path, 
Into a garden goodly garnished 

With herbs and fruits, whose kinds must not be read : 
Not such as earth out of her fruitful womb' ( 15 ) 
Throws forth to men, sweet and well savoured, 
But direful deadly black, both leaf and bloom, 
Fit to adorn the dead and deck the dreary tomb. 

There mournful cypress grew in greatest store ; ( 16 ) 
And trees of bitter gall ; and heben sad ; 
Dead sleeping poppy ; and black hellebore ; 
Cold coloquintida ; and tetra mad; 
Mortal samnitis ; and cicuta bad, 
"With which the unjust Athenians made to die 
"Wise Socrates, who thereof quaffing glad, 
Pour'd out his life and last philosophy 
To the fair Critias, his dearest belamy ! 

The garden of Proserpina this hight ; ( !7 ) 
And in the midst thereof a silver seat, 
With a thick arbour goodly over-dight, 
In which she often us'd from open heat 



SPENSER. 81 

Herself to shroud, and pleasures to entreat : 
Next thereunto did grow a goodly tree, 
With branches broad dispread and body great, 
Clothed with leaves, that none the wood might see, 
And loaded all with fruit as thick as it might be. 

Their fruit were golden apples glistering bright, 
That goodly was their glory to behold ; 
On earth like never grew, nor living wight 
Like ever saw, but they from hence were sold ; ( 18 ) 
For those, which Hercules with conquest bold 
Got from great Atlas' daughters, hence began, 
And planted there did bring forth fruit of gold ; 
And those, with which th' Eubcean young man wan 
Swift Atalanta, when through craft he her outran. 

Here also sprung that goodly golden fruit, 
With which Acontius got his lover true, 
Whom he had long time sought with fruitless suit ; 
Here eke that famous golden apple grew, 
The which amongst the gods false Ate threw ; 
For which the Idcean ladies disagreed, ( 19 ) 
Till partial Paris deem'd it Venus' due, 
And had of her fair Helen for his meed, 
That many noble Greeks and Trojans made to bleed. 

The warlike Elf much wonder'd at this tree, 
So fair and great, that sha*doiv'd all the ground ; 
And his broad branches, laden with rich fee, 
Bid stretch themselves without the utmost bound 
Of this great garden, compass d with a mound : 
Which overhanging, they themselves did steep ( 20 j 
In a black food, which flow d about it round ; 
Tliat is the river of Cocytus deep, 
In which full many souls do endless wail and weep. 

Which to behold, he climb'd up to the bank; 
And, looking down, saw many damned wights ( 21 ) 
In those sad waves, which direful deadly stank, 
Plunged continually of cruel sprites, 



82 SPENSER. 

That with, their piteous cries and yelling shrights, 
They made the further shore resounden wide : 
Amongst the rest of those same rueful sights, 
One cursed creature he by chance espied, 
That drenched lay full deep under the garden side. 

Deep ivas lie drenched to the utmost chin, 
Yet gaped still as coveting to drink 
Of the cold liquor which he waded in : 
And, stretching forth his hand, did often think 
• To reach the fruit which grew, upon the brink ; 
But both the fruit from hand, said, food from mouth, 
Did fly aback, and made him vainly swinck ; 
The whiles he starv'd with hunger, and with drouth 
He daily died, yet never throughly dyen couth. ( 22 ) 

The knight, him seeing labour so in vain, 
Ask'd who he was, and what he meant thereby ? 
Who, groaning deep, thus answered him again : 
" Most cursed of all creatures under sky, 
Lo, Tantalus I here tormented lie ! 
Of whom high Jove wont whilome feasted be ; 
Lo, here I now for want of food do die ! 
But, if that thou be such as I thee see, 
Of grace I pray thee give to eat and drink to me ! " 

" Nay, nay, thou greedy Tantalus," quoth he ; 
" Abide the fortune of thy present fate ; 
And unto all that live in high degree, 
Example be of mind intemperate, 
To teach them how to use their present state." 
Then gan the cursed wretch aloud to cry, 
Accusing highest Jove and gods ingrate : 
And eke blaspheming Heaven bitterly, 
As author of injustice, there to let him die. 

He look'd a little further, and espied 
Another wretch, whose carcase deep was drent 
Within the river which the same did hide : 
But both his hands, most filthy feculent, 



SPENSER. 83 

Above the water were on high extent, 
And fain d to wash themselves incessantly, 
Yet nothing cleaner were for such intent, 
But rather fouler seemed to the eye ; 
So lost his labour vain, and idle industry. 

The knight him calling, asked who he was ? 
Who, lifting up his head, him answered thus ; 
" I Pilate am, ( 23 ) the falsest judge, alas ! 
And most unjust ; that, by unrighteous 
And wicked doom, to Jews despiteous 
Delivered up the Lord of Life to die, 
And did acquit a murderer felonous ; 
The whilst my hands I wash'd in purity, 
The whilst my soul was soil'd with foul iniquity." 

Infinite more tormented in like pain 
He there beheld, too long here to be told : 
Nor Mammon would there let him long remain, 
For terror of the tortures manifold, 
In which the damned souls he did behold, 
But roughly him bespake : " Thou fearful fool, 
"Why takest not of that same fruit of gold ? 
Nor sittest down on that same silver stool, 
To rest thy weary person in the shadow cool ? " 

All which he did to do him deadly fall 
In frail intemperance through sinful bait ; 
To which if he inclined had at all, 
That dreadful fiend, which did behind him wait, 
Would him have rent in thousand pieces straight : 
But he was wary wise in all his way, 
And well perceived his deceitful sleight, 
Nor suffered lust Ms safety to betray : 
So goodly did beguile the guiler of his prey. 

And now he has so long remained there, 
That vital power gan wax both weak and wan 
For want of food and sleep, which two upbear, 
Like mighty pillars, this frail life of man, 



84 SPENSER. 

That none without the same enduren can ; 
For now three days of men were full outwrought, 
Since he this hardy enterprise began : 
Therefore great Mammon fairly he besought 
Into the world to guide him back, as he him brought. 

The god, though loth, yet was constrain'd t' obey ; 
For longer time than that no living wight 
Below the earth might suffered be to stay ; 
So back again him brought to living light. 
But all as soon as his enfeebled sprite 
Gan suck this vital air into his breast, 
As overcome with too exceeding might, 
The life did flit away out of her nest, 
And all his senses were in deadly fit opprest. 



( ,s ) That houses form within was rude and strong, &c. 
Hazlitt, with his fine poetical taste, speaking of the 
two stanzas here following, and the previous one beginning, 
And over all, &c, says, that they are unrivalled for the 
"portentous massiveness of the forms, the splendid chiaro- 
scuro and shadowy horror." — Lectures on the English 
Poets, third edition, p. 77. It is extraordinary that in the 
new " Elegant Extracts " published under his name, seven 
lines of the first stanza, beginning at the words, "From 
whose rough vault," are left out. Their exceeding weight, 
the contrast of the dirt and squalor with the gold, and the 
spider's webs dusking over all, compose chief part of the 
grandeur of the description (as indeed he has just said). 
Hogarth, by the way, has hit upon the same thought of a 
spider's web for his poor's-box, in the wedding-scene in 
Mary-le-bone church. So do tragedy and comedy meet. 

( ,4 ) N 'ill, ne-will, will not. 



SPENSEB. 



85 



( 15 ) Not such as earth, &c. 
Upton thinks it not unlikely that Spenser imagined 
the direful deadly and black fruits which this infernal 
garden bears, from a like garden which Dante describes, 
Inferno, canto 13, v. 4 : — 

Non frondi verdi, ma di color fosco, 
Non rami schietti, ma nodosi e'nvolti, 
Non pomi v' eran, ma stecchi con tosco. 

(No leaves of green were theirs, but dusky sad ; 
No fair straight boughs, but gnarl'd and tangled all ; 
No rounded fruits, but poison-bearing thorns.) 

Dante's garden, however, has no flowers. It is a human 
grove ; that is to' say, made of trees that were once human 
beings, — an aggravation (according to his customary im- 
provement upon horrors) of a like solitary instance in 
Virgil, which Spenser has also imitated in his story of 
Fradubio, book i, canto 2, st. 30. 

( 16 ) There mournful cypress grew in greatest store, &c. 

Among the trees and flowers here mentioned, heben is 
ebony ; coloquintida, the bitter gourd or apple ; tetra, the 
tetrum solanum, or deadly nightshade ; samnitis, Upton 
takes to be the Sabine, or savine-tree ; and cicuta is the 
hemlock, which Socrates drank when he poured out to his 
friends his " last philosophy." How beautifully said is 
that ! But the commentators have shown that it was a 
slip of memory in the poet to make Critias their represen- 
tative on the occasion, — that apostate from his philosophy 
not having been present. Belamy is bel ami, fair friend, 



m SPENSER, 

— a phrase answering to good friend in the old French 
writers. 

( 17 ) The garden of Proserpina this hight. 
The idea of a garden and a golden tree for Proserpina is 
in Claudian, Be Raptu Proserpina, lib. 2, v. 290. But 
Spenser has made the flowers funereal, and added the 
" silver seat," — a strong yet still delicate contrast to the 
black flowers, and in cold sympathy with them. It has 
also a certain fair and lady-like fitness to the possessor of 
the arbour. May I venture, with all reverence to Spenser, 
to express a wish that he had made a compromise with 
the flowers of Claudian, and retained them by the side of 
the others ? Proserpine was an unwilling bride, though 
she became a reconciled wife. She deserved to enjoy her 
Sicilian flowers; and besides, in possessing a nature 
superior to her position, she would not be without inno- 
cent and cheerful thoughts. Perhaps, however, our " sage 
and serious Spenser" would have answered, that she coald 
see into what was good in these evil flowers, and so get a 
contentment from objects which appeared only melancholy 
to others. It is certainly a high instance of modern 
imagination, this venturing to make a pleasure-garden out 
of the flowers of pain. 

( 18 ) But they from hence were sold. 
Upton proposes that, " with a little variation," this 
word sold should be read stold ; " that is," says he, "pro- 
cured by stealth : " — he does not like to say stolen. 
" The wise convey it call." Spenser certainly would have 
no objection to spell the word in any way most convenient ; 



SPENSER. 



87 



and I confess I wish, with Upton, that he had exercised 
his licence in this instance ; though he might have argued 
that the infernal powers are not in the habit of letting 
people have their goods for nothing. In how few of the 
instances that follow did the possession of the golden 
apples turn out well ! Are we sure that it prospered in 
any ? For Acontius succeeded with his apple by a trick ; 
and after all, as the same commentator observes, it was 
not with a golden apple, but common mortal-looking fruit, 
though gathered in the garden of Venus. He wrote a 
promise upon it to marry him, and so his mistress read, 
and betrothed herself. The story is in Ovid : Heroides, 
Epist. xx. xxi. 

( 19 ) For which the Idcean ladies disagreed. 
" He calls the three goddesses that contended for 
the prize of beauty, boldly but elegantly enough, Idsean 
Ladies." — Jortin. " He calls the Muses and the Graces, 
likewise, Ladies." — Church. " The ladies may be fur- 
ther gratified by Milton's adaptation of their title to the 
celebrated daughters of Hesperus, whom he calls Ladies of 
the Hesperides." — Todd. 'fhe ladies of the present 
day, in which so much good poetry and reading have 
revived, will smile at the vindication of a word again 
become common, and so frequent in the old poets and 
romancers. 

( 20 ) Which overhanging, they themselves did steep 

In a black flood, which flow 'd about it round, &c. 

The tree, observe, grew in the middle of " this great 
garden," and yet overhung its utmost bounds, and steeped 



88 SPENSER. 

itself in the black river by which it was encircled. We 
are to imagine the branches with their fruit stretching 
over the garden like one enormous arbour or trellice, and 
mixing a certain lustrous light with the gloom and the 
funereal flowers. You walk in the shadow of a golden 
death. What an excessive and gorgeous luxury beside 
the blackness of hell ! 

( 21 ) And, looking down, saw many damned wights 
In those sad waves, which direful deadly stank. 
Plunged continually of cruel sprites, 
That with their piteous cries, &c. 

Virgil appears to have been the first who ventured to 
find sublimity in a loathsome odour. I say " appears," 
because many Greek writers have perished whom he 
copied, and it is probable the invention was theirs. A 
greater genius, Dante, followed him in this as in other 
respects ; and, probably, would have set the example had it 
not been given him. Sackvile followed both ; and the 
very excess of Spenser's sense of the beautiful and attrac- 
tive would render him fully aware of the capabilities of 
this intensity of the repulsive. Burke notices the subject 
in his treatise On the Sublime and Beautiful. The fol- 
lowing is the conclusion of his remarks : — " It is one of 
the tests by which the sublimity of an image is to be tried, 
not whether it becomes mean when associated with mean 
ideas, but whether, when united with images of an allowed 
grandeur, the whole composition is supported with dignity. 
Things which are terrible are always great ; but when 
things possess disagreeable qualities, or such as have 
indeed some degree of danger, but of a danger easily over- 



SPENSER. 89 

come, they are merely odious, as toads and spiders." — 
Part the Second, Section the Twenty -first. Both points 
are easily illustrated. Passing by a foul ditch, you are 
simply disgusted, and turn aside : but imagine yourself 
crossing a mountain, and coming upon a hot and slimy 
valley in which a pestilential vapour ascends from a city, 
the inhabitants of which have died of the plague and been 
left unburied ; or fancy the great basin of the Caspian Sea 
deprived of its waters, and the horror which their refuse 
would send up over the neigbouring regions. 

( 2a ) He daily died, yet never tlirougldy dyen couth. 
Die could; he never could thoroughly die. Truly 
horrible ; and, as Swift says of his hanging footman, 
"very satisfactory to the beholders." Yet Spenser's 
Tantalus, and his Pontius Pilate, and indeed the whole of 
this latter part of his hell, strike us with but a poor sort 
of cruelty compared with any like number of pages out of 
the tremendous volume of Dante. But the far greater 
part of our extract, the sooty golden cave of Mammon, 
and the mortal beauty of the' garden of Proserpine, with 
its golden fruit hanging in the twilight ; all, in short, in 
which Spenser combines his usual luxury with grandeur, 
are as fine as anything of the kind which Dante or any 
one else ever conceived. 

( 23 ) " I Pilate am" &c. 
Let it not be supposed that I intend the slightest 
glance of levity towards the divine name which has become 
identified with charity. But charity itself will allow us 



90 BPENSEE. 

to imagine the astonishment of this Koman Governor of 
Jerusalem, could he have foreseen the destinies of his 
name. He doubtless thought, that if another age spoke of 
him at all, it would treat him as a good-natured man who 
had to rule over a barbarous people, and make a com- 
promise between his better judgment and their laws and 
prejudices. No name, except Judas's, has received more 
execration from posterity. Our good-natured poet has 
here put him in the " loathly lakes " of Tartarus. 



SPENSEE. . 91 



A GALLERY OF PICTURES FROM SPENSER. 

SPENSER CONSIDERED AS THE POET OF THE PAINTERS. 

It has been a whim of late years with some transcen- 
dental critics, in the excess of the reaction of what may 
be called spiritual poetry against material, to deny utterly 
the old family relationship between poetry and painting. 
They seem to think that, because Darwin absurdly pro- 
nounced nothing to be poetry which could not be painted, 
they had only to avail themselves of the spiritual supe- 
riority of the art of the poet, and assert the contrary 
extreme. Now, it is granted that the subtlest creations of 
poetry are neither effected by a painter-like process, nor 
limited to his powers of suggestion. The finest idea the 
poet gives you of anything is by what may be called sleight 
of mind, striking it without particular description on the 
mind of the reader, feeling and all, moral as well as 
physical, as a face is struck on a mirror. But to say, 
nevertheless, that the poet does not include the painter in 
his more visible creations, is to deprive him of half his 
privileges, nay, of half of his very poems. Thousands of 
images start out of the canvas of his pages to laugh at 
the assertion. Where did the great Italian painters get 
half of the most bodily details of their subjects but out of 



92 SPENSER. 

the poets ? and what becomes of a thousand landscapes, 
portraits, colours, lights and shades, groupings, effects, 
intentional and artistical pictures, in the writings of all 
the poets inclusive, the greatest especially ? 

I have taken opportunity of this manifest truth to 
introduce under one head a variety of the most beautiful 
passages in Spenser, many of which might otherwise have 
seemed too small for separate exhibition ; and I am sure 
that the more poetical the reader, the more will he be 
delighted to see these manifestations of the pictorial side 
of poetry. He will not find them destitute of that subtler 
spirit of the art, which picture cannot express. 

"After reading," said Pope, "a canto of Spenser two 
or three days ago to an old lady, between seventy and 
eighty years of age, she said that I had been showing her 
a gallery of pictures. I don't know how it is, but she said 
very right. There is something in Spenser that pleases 
one as strongly in old age as it did in one's youth. 
I read the Faerie Queene when I was about twelve, 
with infinite delight ; and I think it gave me as much, 
when I read it over about a year or two ago." — Spence's 
Anecdotes. 

The canto that Pope here speaks of was probably one 
of the most allegorical sort, very likely that containing the 
Mask of Cupid. In the one preceding it, there is a pro- 
fessed gallery of pictures, supposed to be painted on 
tapestry. But Spenser's allegorical pictures are only his 
most obvious ones : he has a profusion of others, many of 
them still more exquisitely painted. I think that if he 
had not been a great poet, he would have been a great 



SPENSER. 93 

painter; and in* that case there is ground for believing 
that England would have possessed, and in the person of 
one man, her Claude, her Annibal Caracci, her Correggio, 
her Titian, her Eembrandt, perhaps even her Kaphael. I 
suspect that if Spenser's history were better known, we 
should find that he was a passionate student of pictures, a 
haunter of the collections of his friends Essex and Lei- 
cester. The tapestry just alluded to he criticises with all 
the gusto of a connoisseur, perhaps with an eye to pictures 
in those very collections. In speaking of a Leda, he says, 
bursting into an admiration of the imaginary painter, — 

O wondrous skill and sweet wit of the man, 

That her in daffodillies sleeping made, 

From scorching heat her dainty limbs to shade ! 

And then he proceeds with a description full of life and 
beauty, but more proper to be read with the context than 
brought forward separately. The colouring implied in 
these lines is in the very core of the secret of that branch 
of the art ; and the unpainted part of the tapestry is 
described with hardly less beauty : 

For, round about, the walls yclothed were 
With goodly arras of great majesty, 
Woven with gold and silk so close and near, 
That the rich metal lurked privily, 
As feigning to be hid from envious eye ; 
Yet here, and there, and everywhere, unwares 
It show'd itself, and shone unwillingly ; 
Like to a discolour' d snake, whose hidden snares 
Through the green grass his long bright burnish' d back declares. 

Spenser should have a new set of commentators, — the 
painters themselves. They might do for him in their own 



94 SPENSER. 

art, what Wharton did in his, — trace him among his 
brethren. Certainly no works would "illustrate" better 
than Spenser's with engravings from the old masters (I 
should like no better amusement than to hunt him through 
the print-shops !), and from none might a better gallery- 
be painted by new ones. I once wrote an article on the 
subject in a magazine ; and the late Mr. Hilton (I do not 
know whether he saw it) projected such a gallery, among 
his other meritorious endeavours. It did not answer to 
the originals, either in strength or sweetness ; but a very 
creditable and pleasing specimen may be seen in the 
National Gallery, — Serena rescued from the Savages by 
Sir Calepine. 

In corroboration of the delight which Spenser took in 
this more visible kind of poetry, it is observable that he 
is never more free from his superfluousness than when 
painting a picture. When he gets into a moral, or intel- 
lectual, or narrative vein, we might often spare him a good 
deal of the flow of it ; but on occasions of sheer poetry 
and painting, he is too happy to wander so much from 
his point. If he is tempted to expatiate, every word is to 
the purpose. Poetry and painting indeed would in Spenser 
be identical, if they could be so ; and they are more so, 
too, than it has latterly been the fashion to allow; for 
painting does not deal in the purely visible. It deals 
also in the suggestive and the allusive, therefore in 
thoughts beyond the visible proof of the canvas ; in inti- 
mations of sound ; in references to past and future. Still 
the medium is a visible one, and is at the mercy of the 
spectator's amount of comprehension. The great privilege 



SPENSER. 95 

of the poet is, that, using the medium of speech, he can 
make his readers poets ; can make them awaie and pos- 
sesssed of what he intends, enlarging their comprehension 
by his details, or enlightening it by a word. A painter 
might have the same feeling as Shakspeare respecting 
the moonlight "sleeping" on a bank; but how is he 
to evince it ? He may go through a train of the 
profoundest thoughts in his own mind ; but into what 
voluminous fairy circle is he to compress them ? Poetry 
can paint whole galleries in a page, while her sister 
art requires heaps of canvas to render a few of her poems 
visible. 

This, however, is what everybody knows. Not so, that 
Spenser emulated the Raphaels and Titians in a profusion 
of pictures, many of which are here taken from their 
walls. They give the Poet's Poet a claim to a new title, — 
that of Poet of the Painters. The reader has seen what 
Mr. Hazlitt says of him in connection with Rubens ; but 
the passage adds, what I have delayed quoting till now, 
that " none but Rubens could have painted the fancy of 
Spenser ; " adding further, that Rubens " could not have 
painted the sentiment, the airy dream that hovers over 
it." I venture to think that this fine critic on the two 
sister arts wrote the first of these sentences hastily ; and 
that the truth of the second would have shown him, on 
reflection, with what painters, greater than Rubens, the 
poet ought to have been compared. The great Meming 
was a man of a genius as fine and liberal as his nature ; 
yet who that looks for a moment at the pictures which 
ensue, shall say that he would have been justified in 



98 SPENSER. 

putting his name to them ? Sentiments and airy dreams 
hover over them all, — say rather, abide and brood over 
many, — with such thoughtfulness as the Italian aspect 
only can match. More surprising is Mr. Coleridge's 
assertion, that Spenser's descriptions are "not, in the 
true sense of the word, picturesque ; but composed of a 
wondrous series of images, as in dreams." — Lectures (ut 
sup.) vol. i. p. 93. If, by true sense of the word, he 
means the acquired sense of piquancy of contrast, or a 
certain departure from the smoothness of beauty in order 
to enhance it, Spenser certainly is not in the habit of 
putting many thorns in his roses. His bowers of bliss, he 
thought, did not demand it. The gentle beast that Una 
rode would not have cut a very piquant figure in the 
forest scenery of Mr. Gilpin. But if Coleridge means 
picturesque in the sense of fitness for picture, and very 
striking fitness, then the recollections of the masks, or the 
particular comparison of Prince Arthur's crest with the 
almond-tree (which is the proof he adduces) made him 
forget the innumerable instances in which the pictorial 
power is exhibited. Nor was Spenser unaware, nay, he 
was deeply sensible of the other feeling of the picturesque, 
as may be seen by his sea-gods' beards (when Proteus 
kisses Amoret), his "rank grassy fens," his "weeds of 
glorious feature," his oaks "half dead," his satyrs, gloomy 
lights, beautiful but unlucky grounds, &c. &c. &c. (for in 
this sense of the word, there are feelings of the invisible 
corresponding with the stronger forms of the picturesque). 
He has himself noticed the theory in his Bower of Bliss, 
and thus anticipated the modern taste in landscape garden- 



SPENSER. 97 

ing, the idea of which is supposed to have originated with 
Milton :— 

One would have thought (so cunningly the rude 
And scorned parts were mingled with the fine) 
That Nature had for wantonness ensued 
Art, and that Art at Nature did repine. 
So, striving each the other to undermine, 
Each did the other's work more beautify. 

But the reader will judge for himself. 

I have attached to each of the pictures in this Spenser 
Gallery the name of the painter of whose genius it 
reminded me ; and I think the connoisseur will allow 
that the assignment was easy, and that the painter-poet's 
range of art is equally wide and wonderful. 



CHARISSA; OR, CHARITY. 

Character : Spiritual Love. Painter for it, Raphael. 

She was a woman in her freshest age, 
Of wondrous beauty and of bounty rare, 
With goodly grace and comely personage, 
That was on earth not easy to compare ; 
Full of great love ; but Cupid's wanton snare 
As hell she hated, chaste in work and will ; 
Her neck and breasts were ever open bare, 
That ay thereof her babes might suck their fill ; 
The rest was all in yellow robes arrayed still. 

A multitude of babes about her hung 
Playing their sports, that joy'd her to behold, 
Whom still she fed, whilst they were weak and young, 
But thrust them forth still as they waxed old ; 

7 



98 SPENSEE. 

And on her head she wore a tire of gold 
Adorn'd with gems and owches wondrous fair, 
Whose passing price nneath f was to be told ; 
And by her side there sate a gentle 'pair ( 24 ) 
Of turtle doves, she sitting in an ivory chair. 



( 24 ) And by her side, &c. 
This last couplet brings at once before us all the dis- 
passionate graces and unsuperfluous treatment of Eaphael's 
allegorical females. 



HOPE. 

Character : Sweetness without Devotedness. Painter, Correggio. 

With him went Hope in rank, a handsome maid, 
Of cheerful look, and lovely to behold : 
i In silken samite she was light array'd, 

And her fair locks were woven up in gold. ( 25 ) 
She alway smiVd ; — and in her hand did hold 
An holy-water sprinkle dipp'd in dew, 
With which she sprinkled favours manifold 
On whom she list, and did great liking shew ; 
Great liking unto many, but true love to few. 



( 25 ) And her fair looks, &c. 
What a lovely line is that! and with a beauty how 
simple and sweet is the sentiment portrayed in the next 

* Owches wondrous fair : Owches are carcanets, or ranges of 
jewels. 

f Uneath : Scarcely, with difficulty. 



SPENSER. 99 

three words, — " She alway smil'd ! " But almost every 
line of the stanza is lovely, including the felicitous 
Catholic image of the 

Holy-water sprinkle dipp'd in dew. 
Correggio is in every colour and expression of the 
picture. 



CUPID USURPING THE THRONE OF JUPITER. 
Character: Potency in Weakness. Painter, Raphael. 

In Satyr's shape Antiope lie snatch'd ; 
And like a fire, when he JEgine essay'd ; 
A shepherd, when Mnemosyne he catch'd ; 
And like a serpent to the Thracian maid. 
While thus on earth great Jove these pageants play'd, 
The winged boy did thrust into his throne ; 
And scoffing, thus unto his mother said : 
" Lo ! now the heavens obey to me alone, 
And take me for their Jove, whilst Jove to earth is gone. 



MARRIAGE PROCESSION OF THE THAMES AND 
MEDWAY. 

Character: Genial Strength, Grace, and Luxury. Painter, Raphael. 

First came great Neptune with his three-forked mace, 
ThaV rules the seas and makes them rise or fall ; 
His dewy locks did drop with brine apace, 
Under his diadem imperial ; 
And by his side his queen, with coronal, 
Fair Amphitrite, most divinely fair, 
Whose ivory shoulders weren covered all, 
As with a robe, with her own silver hair, 
And deck'd with pearls which the Indian seas for her prepare. 

LOFC. 



100 SPENSER. 

These marched far afore the other crew, 
And all the way before thern as they went 
Triton his trumpet shrill before him blew, 
For goodly triumph and great jolliment, 
That made the rocks to roar as they were rent. 

Or take another part of the procession, with dolphins 
and sea-nymphs listening as they went, to 

ARION. 

Then was there heard a most celestial sound 
Of dainty music, which did next ensue 
Before the spouse. That was Arion, crown d ; 
"Who playing on his harp, unto him drew 
The ears and hearts of all that goodly crew ; 
That even yet the dolphin which liim bore 
Through the iEgean seas from pirates' view 
Stood still by him, astonish'd at his lore, 
And all the raging seas for joy forgot to roar. 

So went he playing on the watery plain. ( 26 ) 



( 26 ) So went he, &c. 
This sweet, placid, and gently progressing line is one 
of Spenser's happy samples of alliteration. And how 
emphatic is the information — 

That was Arion, crown'd. 



SIR GUYON BINDING FUROR. * 

Character : Superhuman Energy and Rage. Painter, Michael Angelo. 

In his strong arms he stiffly him embrac'd, 
Who, him gain- striving, nought at all prevail'd ; 
Then liim to ground he cast and rudely haled, 
And both his hands fast bound behind his back, 
And both his feet in fetters to an iron rack. 






SPENSER. 101 

With hundred iron chains lie did him bind, 
And hundred knots that him did sore constrain ; 
Yet his great iron teeth he still did grind 
And grimly gnash, threat'ning revenge in vain. 
His burning eyes, whom bloody streaks did stain, 
Stared full wide, and threw forth sparks of fire ; 
And more for rank despite, than for great pain, 
Shak'd his long locks, colour 'd like copper wire, ( 27 ) 
And bit his tawny beard, to show his raging ire. 



( 27 j Colour d like copper wire. 

A felicity suggested perhaps by the rhyme. It has all 
the look, however, of a copy from some painting ; perhaps 
one of Julio Komano's, 



UNA (OK FAITH IN DISTRESS). 
Character : Loving and Sorroivful Purity glorified. 

(May I say, that I think it would take Eaphael and 
Correggio united to paint this, on account of the exquisite 
chiaroscuro ? Or might not 'the painter of the Magdalen 
have it all to himself?) 

Yet she, most faithful lady, all this while, ( 2R ) 
Forsaken, woeful, solitary maid, 
Far from all people's press, as in exile, 
In wilderness and wasteful deserts stray'd 
To seek her knight, who subtily betray'd 
Through that late vision which the enchanter wrought, 
Had her abandon'd. She, of nought afraid, 
Through woods and wasteness wide him daily sought. 
Yet wished tidings none of him unto her brought. 



.» 



102 SPENSER. 

One day nigh weary of the irksome way, 
From her unhasty beast she did alight, 
And on the grass her dainty limbs did lay 
In secret shadow far from all men's sight : 
From her fair head her fillet she undight 
And laid her stole aside : her angeVsface 
As the great eye of heaven shined bright, 
And made a sunshine in the shady place ; 
Did never mortal eye behold such heavenly grace. 

It fortuned, out of the thickest wood 
A ramping lion rushed suddenly, 
Hunting full greedy after savage blood : 
Soon as the royal virgin he did spy, 
With gaping mouth at her ran greedily, 
To have at once devour'd her tender corse ; 
But to the prey whenas he drew more nigh, 
His bloody rage assuaged with remorse, 
And with the sight amaz'd, forgot his furious force. 

Instead thereof he kiss'd her weary feet, 
And lick'd her lily hand with fawning tongue, 
As he her wronged innocence did weet. 
O how can beauty master the most strong, 
And simple truth subdue avenging wrong ! 
Whose yielded pride and proud submission, 
Still dreading death when she had marked long, 
Her heart gan melt in great compassion : 
And drizzling tears did shed for pure affection. 

" The lion, lord of every beast infield," 
Quoth she, " his princely puissance doth abate, 
And mighty proud to humble weak does yield, 
Forgetful of the hungry rage, which late 
Him prick'd with pity of my sad estate :— 
But he my lion, and my noble lord, 
How does he find in cruel heart to hate 
Her, that him lov'd, and ever most ador'd 
As the god of my life ? Why hath he me abhorr'd ? 



< 



SPENSER. 103 

( 28 ) Yet she, &c. 

Coleridge quotes this stanza as u a good instance of 
what he means " in the following remarks in his Lectures : 
— "As characteristic of Spenser, I would call your parti- 
cular attention in the first place to the indescribable sweet- 
ness and fluent projections of his verse, very clearly 
distinguishable from the deeper and more inwoven har- 
monies of Shakspeare and Milton." Good, however, as 
the stanza is, and beautiful the second line, it does not 
appear to me so happy an instance of what Coleridge 
speaks of as many which he might have selected. 

The verses marked in the second stanza are one of the 
most favourite quotations from the I 1 airy Queen. 

( 29 ) As the god of my life ? &c. 
Pray let not the reader consent to read this first half 
of the line in any manner less marked and peremptory. 
It is a striking instance of the beauty of that " acceleration 
and retardation of true verse " which Coleridge speaks of. 
There is to be a hurry on the words as the, and a pas- 
sionate emphasis and passing* stop on the word god ; and 
so of the next three words. 



104 



SPENSEK, 



JUPITER AND MATA. 

Character : Young and Innocent but Conscious and Sensuous Beauty. 
Painter, Correggio. 

Beliold how goodly my fair love does lie 

In proud humility ! 
Like unto Mala, whenas Jove her took 
In Tempe, lying on the flowery grass, 
'Ticixt sleep and wake, after she weary was 
With bathing in the Acidalian brook. 



NIGHT AND THE WITCH DUESSA, 

TAKING SANSJOY IN THEIR CHARIOT TO vESCULAPIUS TO BE 
RESTORED TO LIFE. 

Character: Dreariness of Scene ; Horridness of Aspect and WicJced 
Beauty, side by side. Painter, Julio Romano. 



Then to her iron waggon she betakes 



And with her bears the foul well-favoured witch . 
Through mirksome air her ready way she makes, 
Her twofold team (of which two black as pitch 
And two were brown, yet each to each unlich*) 
Bid softly swim away, nor ever stamp 
Unless she chanc'd their stubborn mouths to twitch : 
Then, foaming tar, their bridles they would champ, 
And trampling the fine element would fiercely ramp. 

So well they sped, that they be come at length 
Unto the place whereas the Paynim lay 
Devoid of outward sense and native strength, 
Cover'd with charmed cloud from view of day 

# Each to each unlich : Unlike. 



SPENSEK, 105 

And sight of men, since his late luckless fray. 
His cruel wounds, with cruddy blood congeal'd, 
They binden up so wisely as they may, 
And handle softly, till they can be heal'd, 
So lay him in her chariot, close in night conceal'd. 

And all the while she stood upon the ground, 
The wakeful dogs did never cease to lay ; 
As giving warning of the unwonted sound, 
With which her iron wheels did them affray, 
And her dark griesly look them much dismay. 
The messenger of death, the ghastly owl, 
With dreary shrieks did also her oewray ; 
And hungry wolves continually did howl 
At her abhorred face, so filthy and so foul. C 30 ) 

' Then turning back in silence soft they stole, 
And brought the heavy corse with easy pace 
To yawning gulf of deep Avernus hole. 
By that same hole, an entrance, dark and base, 
With smoke and sulphur hiding all the place, 
Descends to hell : there creature never pass'd 
That back returned without heavenly grace ; 
But dreadful furies which their chains have brast, 
And damned sprites sent forth, to make ill men aghast. 

By that same way the direful dames do drive 
Their mournful chariot, filVd with rusty Hood. ( 31 ) 
And down to Pluto's house are come belive : 
Which passing through, on every side them stood 
The trembling ghosts with sad amazed mood, 
Chattering their iron teeth, and staring wide 
With stony eyes ; and all the hellish brood 
Of fiends infernal flock'd on every side, 
To gaze on earthly wight, that with the night durst ride. 



( 30 ) So filthy and so foul. 
Why he should say this of Night, except perhaps in 
connection with the witch, I cannot say. It seems to me 



106 SPENSER. 

to hurt the "abhorred face." Night, it is true, maybe 
reviled, or made grand or lovely, as a poet pleases. There 
is both classical and poetical warrant for all. But the 
goddess with whom the witch dared to ride (as the poet 
finely says at the close) should have been exhibited, it 
would seem, in a more awful, however frightful guise. 

( 31 ) Their mournful chariot, JilVd with rusty blood. 

There is something wonderfully dreary, strange, and 
terrible in this picture. By "rusty blood" (which is very 
horrid) he must mean the blood half congealing ; altered 
in patches, like rusty iron. Be this as it may, the word 
"rusty," as Warton observes, "seems to have conveyed 
the idea of somewhat very loathsome and horrible to 
our author." 



VENUS, IN SEARCH OF CUPID, COMING TO DIANA. 

Character: Contrast of Impassioned and Unimpassioned Beauty — 
Cold and Warm colours mixed. Painter, Titian. 

(Yet I know not whether Annibal Caracci would not 
better suit the demand for personal expression in this 
instance. But the recollection of Titian's famous Bath 
of Diana is forced upon us.) 

Shortly unto the wasteful woods she came, 
Whereas she found the goddess with her crew, 
After late chace of their embrewed game, 
Sitting beside a fountain in a rew ; 



SPENSEB. 107 

Some of them washing with the liquid dew 
From off their dainty limbs the dusty sweat 
And soil, which did defile their lively hue ; 
Others lay shaded from the scorching heat ; 
The rest upon her person gave attendance great. 

She having hung upon a bough on high 
Her bow and painted quiver, had unlac'd , 

Her silver buskins from her nimble thigh, 
And her lank loins ungirt and breasts uubrac'd, 
After her heat the breathing cold to taste ; 
Her golden locks, that late in tresses bright 
Embraided were for hindering of her haste, 
Now loose about her shoulders lay undight, 
And were with sweet ambrosia all besprinkled light. 

Soon as she Venus saw behind her back, 
She was asham'd to be so loose surpris'd, 
And wak'd half wrath against her damsels slack, 
That had not her thereof before aviz'd, 
But suffer'd her so carelessly disguiz'd 
Be overtaken : soon her garments loose ( 32 ) 
Upgathering in her bosom she comprizd, 
Well as she might, and to the goddess rose, 
Whiles all her nymphs did like a garland her inclose. 



( 32 ) Soon her garments loose, &c. 
This picture is from Ovid ; but the lovely and beauti- 
fully coloured comparison of the garland is Spenser's own. 



108 SPENSER. 



MAY. 



Character : Budding Beauty in male and female; Animal Passion 
Luminous Vernal colouring. Painter, Titian. 

Then came fair Mag, the fairest maid on ground, ( 33 ) 
Deck'd all with dainties of her season's pride, 
And throwing flowers out of her lap around : 
Upon two brethren's shoulders she did ride, 
The Twins of Leda ; which, on either side, 
Supported her like to their sovereign queen : 
Lord ! how all creatures lauglid when her they sj 
And leap'd and dancd as they had ravisJid heen 
And Cupid's self about her fluttered all in green. 



( 33 ) Then came, &c. 

Kaphael would have delighted (but Titian's colours 
would be required) in the lovely and liberal uniformity of 
this picture, — the young goddess May supported aloft; 
the two brethren on each side ; animals and flowers below ; 
birds in the air, and Cupid streaming overhead in his 
green mantle. Imagine the little fellow, with a body of 
Titian's carnation, tumbling in the air, and playfully 
holding the mantle, which is flying amply behind, rather 
than concealing him. 

This charming stanza beats the elegant but more 
formal invocation to May by Milton, who evidently had it 
in his recollection. Indeed the latter is almost a com- 
pilation from various poets. It is, however, too beautiful 
to be omitted here, 



■M 



SPENSEK. 109 

Now the bright morning- star, day's harbinger, 
Comes dancing from the east, and leads with her 
The flowery May, who from her green lap throws 
The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose. 

Hail bounteous May, that dost inspire 
Mirth, and youth, and warm desire ! 
Woods and groves are of thy dressing, 
Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing. 
Thus we salute thee with our early song, 
And welcome thee, and wish thee long. 

Spenser's "Lord! how all creatures laugh' d," Is an 
instance of joyous and impulsive expression not common 
with English poets, out of the pale of comedy. They have 
geniality in abundance, hut not animal spirits. 



AN ANGEL, WITH A PILGRIM AND A FAINTING 
KNIGHT. 

Character : Active Superhuman Beauty, with the finest colouring and 
contrast. Painter, Titian. 

During the while that Guyon did abide 
In Mammon's house, the palmer, whom whilere 
That wanton maid of passage had denied, 
By further search had passage found elsewhere ; 
And being on his way, approached near 
While Guyon lay in trance : when suddenly 
He heard a voice that called loud and clear, 
" Come hither, hither, O come hastily ! " 
That all the fields resounded with the rueful cry. 

The palmer leant his ear unto the noise, 
To weet who call'd so importunedly ; 
Again he heard a more enforced voice, 
That bade him come in haste. He by-and-bye 



110 SPENSEE. 

His feeble feet directed to the cry ; 
Which to that shady delve him brought at last, 
Where Mammon earst did sun his treasury : 
There the good Guyon he found slumbering fast 
In senseless dream"; which sight at first him sore aghast'. 

Beside his head there sat a fair young man, ( 31 ) 
Of wondrous beauty and of freshest years, 
Whose tender bud to blossom new began, 
And flourish fair above Ms equal peers ; 
His snowy front, curled with golden hairs, 
Like Phoebus' face adorn'd with sunny rays, 
Divinely shone ; and tivo sharp winged shears, 
Decked with diverse plumes, like painted jays, 
Were fixed at his back to cut his airy ways. 



( 34 ) Beside his head, &c. 

The superhuman beauty of this angel should he 
Raphael's, yet the picture, as a whole, demands Titian ; 
and the painter of Bacchus was not incapable of the most 
imaginative exaltation of countenance. As to the angel's 
body, no one could have painted it like him, — nor the 
beautiful jay's wings ; not to mention the contrast between 
the pilgrim's weeds and the knight's armour. See a 
picture of Venus blinding Cupid, beautifully engraved 
by Sir Robert Strange, in which the Cupid has variegated 
wings. 



SPENSER. Ill 



AURORA AND TITHONUS. 

Character: Young and Genial Beauty, contrasted with Age, — the 
accessories full of the mixed warmth and dullness of morning. 
Painter, Guido. 

The joyous day gan early to appear, 
And fair Aurora from the dewy bed 
Of aged Tithon gan herself to rear 
With rosy cheeks, for shame as blushing red. 
Her golden lochs, for haste, were loosely shed 
About her ears, when Una did her mark 
Climb to her chariot, all with flowers spread, 
From heaven high to chace the cheerless dark : 
With merry note her loud salutes the mounting lark. 



THE BRIDE AT THE ALTAR. 

Character : Flushed yet Lady-like Beauty, with ecstatic Angels 
regarding her. Fainter, the same. 

Behold, while she before the altar stands, 
Hearing the holy priest that to her speaks, 
And blesses her with his two happy hands, 
How the red roses flush up in her cheeks ! 
And the pure snow, with goodly vermeil stain, 

Like crimson dyed in grain ! 
That ev'n the angels, which continually 
About the sacred altar do remain, 
Forget their service and about her fly, 
Oft peeping in her face, that seems more fair ( 33 ) 

The more they on it stare ; 
But her sad eyes, still fastened on the ground, 
Are governed with goodly modesty, 
That suffers not one look to glance awry, 
Which may let in a little thought unsound. 



112 SPENSEB. 

( 35 ) Oft peeping in her face, &c. 

I cannot think the words peeping and stare the best 
which the poet could have used ; but he is aggravating 
the beauties of his bride in a long epithalamium, and 
sacrificing everything to her superiority. The third line 
is felicitous. 



A NYMPH BATHING. 

Character : Ecstasy of Conscious and Luxurious Beauty. Painter, 
the same. 

— Her fair locks, which formerly were bound 
Up in one knot, she low adown did loose, 
Which flowing long and thick, her cloth'd around, 
And the ivory in golden mantle gownd ; 
So that fair spectacle was from him reft, 
Yet that which reft it, no less fair was found : 
So hid in locks and waves from looker's theft, 
Nought but her lovely face she for his looking left. 

Withal she laughed, and she blush- d withal, ( 36 ) 
That blushing to her laughter gave more grace, 
And laughter to her blushing. 



^ S6 ) Withal she laughed, &c. 
Perhaps this is the loveliest thing of the kind, mixing 
the sensual with the graceful, that ever was painted. The 
couplet, So hid in locks and waves, &c. would be an exces- 
sive instance of the sweets of alliteration, could we bear to 
miss a particle of it. 



SPENSER. 113 



THE CAVE OF DESPAIR. 

Character : Savage and Forlorn Scenery, occupied by Squalid Misery. 
Painter, Salvator Rosa. 

Ere long they come where that same wicked wight 
His dwelling has, low in a hollow cave, 
Far underneath a craggy cliff ypight, 
Dark, doleful, dreary, like a greedy grave, 
That still for carrion carcasses doth crave ; 
On top whereof ay dwelt the ghastly owl, 
Shrieking his baleful note, which ever drave 
Far from that haunt all other cheerful fowl, 
And all about it wand'ring ghosts did wail and howl : 

And all about old stocJcs and stubs of trees, 
Whereon nor fruit nor leaf was ever seen, 
Did hang upon the ragged rocky knees, 
On which had many wretches hanged been, 
Whose carcasses were scattered on the green, 
And thrown about the cliffs. Arrived there, 
That bare-head knight, for dread and doleful teen,* 
Would fain have fled, nor durst approachen near, 
But th' other forc'd him stay and comforted in fear. 

That darksome cave they enter, where they find 
That cursed man low sitting on the ground, 
Musing full sadly in his sullen mind ; 
His griesly lochs, long growen and unbound, 
Disordered hung about his shoulders round, 
And hid his face through which the hollow eyne 
Looltd deadly dull, and stared as astound ; 
His raw-bone cheeks, through penury and pine, 
Were shrunk into his jaws, as he did never dine. 



Teen: Anxiety. 



114 SPENSEK. 

His garment nought but many ragged clouts, 
With thorns together pinn'd and patched was, 
The which his naked sides he wrapp'd abouts ; 
And him beside there lay upon the grass 
A dreary corse, whose life away did pass, 
All wallow'd in his own yet lukewarm blood, 
That from his wound yet welled fresh alas ! 
In which a rusty knife fast fixed stood, 
And made an open passage for the gushing flood. 

Still finer than this description are the morbid sophistry 
and the fascinations of terror that follow it in the original ; 
but as they are less poetical or pictorial then argumen- 
tative, the extract is limited accordingly. There is a 
tradition that when Sir Philip Sidney read this part of 
the Fairy Queen, be fell into transports of admiration. 



A KNIGHT IN BBIGHT ARMOUR LOOKING INTO 
A CAVE. 

Character : A deep effect of Chiaroscuro, making deformity visible. 
Painter, Rembrandt. 

But full of fire and greedy hardiment, 
The youthful knight would not for aught be stay'd, 
But forth unto the darksome hole he went, 
And looked in. His glistering armour made 
A little glooming light, much like a shade ; ( 37 ) 
By which he saw the ugly monster plain, 
Half like a serpent horribly display'd, 
But th' other half did woman's shape retain, 
Most loathsome, filthy foul, and full of vile disdain. 



( 37 ) A little glooming light, much like a shade. 
Spenser is very fond of this effect, and has repeatedly 
painted it. I am not aware that anybody noticed it 






SPENSER. 115 

before him. It is evidently the original of the passage in 
Milton :— 

Where glowing embers through the room 

Teach light to counterfeit a gloom. 

Observe the pause at the words looked in. 



MALBECCO SEES HELLENORE DANCING WITH THE 
SATYRS. 

Character : Luxurious Abandonment to Mirth. Painter, Nicholas 
Poussin. 

— Afterwards, close creeping as he might, 
He in a bush did hide his fearful head : 
The jolly satyrs, full of fresh delight, 
Came dancing forth, and with them nimbly led 
Fair Hellenore, with garlands all hespread, 
Whom their May-lady they had newly made : 
She, proud of that new honour which they redd,* 
And of their lovely fellowship full glad, 
Danc'd lively ; and her face did ivith a laurel shade. 

The silly man then in a thicket lay, 
Saw all this goodly sport, and grieved sore, 
Yet durst 'he not against it do or say, 
But did his heart with bitter thoughts engore 
To see the unkindness of his Hellenore. 
All day they danced with great lustjdiead, 
And with their horned feet the green grass wore, 
The whiles their goats upon the browses fed, 
Till drooping Phozbus gan to hide his golden head. 

* That new honour which they redd : Areaded, awarded. 



116 SPENSEB, 



LANDSCAPE, 

WITH DAMSELS CONVEYING A WOUNDED SQUIRE ON HIS HORSE. 

Character : Select Southern Elegance, with an intimation of fine 
Architecture. Painter, Claude. {Yet " mighty " woods hardly 
belong to him.) 

Into that forest far they thence him led, 
Where was their dwelling, in a pleasant glade 
With mountains round about environed ; 
And mighty woods which did the valley shade 
And like a stately theatre it made, 
Spreading itself into a spacious plain ; 
And in the midst a little river play'd 
Amongst the pumy stones, which seem'd to plain 
With gentle murmur, that his course they did restrain. 

Beside the same a dainty place there lay, 

Planted with myrtle trees and laurels green, 

In which the birds sung many a lovely lay 

Of God's high praise and of their sweet love's teen, 

As it an earthly paradise had been ; 

In whose enclosed shadows there was pight 

A fair pavilion, scarcely to be seen. 



THE NYMPHS AND GRACES DANCING TO A 

SHEPHERD'S PIPE ; or, 

APOTHEOSIS OF A POET'S MISTRESS. 

Character : Nakedness without Impudency ; Multitudinous and Inno- 
cent Delight ; Exaltation of the principal Person from Circum- 
stances rather than her own Ideality. Painter, Albano. 

Unto this place whenas the elfin knight 
Approach'd, him seemed that the merry sound 
Of a shrill pipe he playing heard on height, 
And many feet fast thumping the hollow ground ; 



SPENSEB. 117 

That through, the woods their echo did rebound ; 
He nigher drew, to weet what might it be ; 
There he a troop of ladies dancing found 
Full merrily, and making gladful glee, 
And in the midst a shepherd piping he did see. 

He durst not enter into the open green, 
For dread of them unwares to be descry'd, 
For breaking off their dance, if he were seen ; 
But in the covert of the wood did bide, 
Beholding all, yet of them unespied ; 
There he did see (that pleased much his sight 
That even he himself his eyes envied) 
A hundred naked maidens lily white, 
All ranged in a ring, and dancing in delight. 

All they without were ranged in a ring 
And danced round, but in the midst of them 
Three other ladies did both dance and sing, 
The whilst the rest them round about did hem, 
And like a garland did in compass stem ; 
And in the midst of those same three was placed 
Another damsel, as a precious gem 
Amidst a ring most richly well enchaced, 
That with her goodly presence all the rest much graced. 

Those were the Graces, daughters of delight, 
Handmaids of Venus, which are wont to haunt 
Upon this hill, and dance there day and night ; 
Those three to men all gifts of grace do graunt, 
And all that Venus in herself doth vaunt 
Is borrowed of them ; but that fair one 
That in the midst was placed paravaunt, 
Was she to whom that shepherd pip'd alone, 
That made him pipe so merrily as never none. 

She was, to weet, that jolly shepherd's lass 
Which piped there unto that merry rout ; 
That jolly shepherd which there piped, was 
Poor Colin Clout (who knows not Colin Clout ?) ; 



118 SPENSER. 

He pip'd apace, whilst they him danc'd about. 
Pipe, jolly shepherd ! pipe thou now apace 
Unto thy love, that made thee low to lout ; 
Thy love is present there with thee in place. 
Thy love is there advancd to be another Or ace. ( 38 



( 38 ) Thy love is there advancd, &c. 

And there she remains, dancing in the midst of the 
Graces for ever, herself a Grace, made one by the ordin- 
ance of the poor but great poet who here addresses himself 
under his pastoral title, and justly prides himself on the 
power of conferring immortality on his love. The apo- 
strophe is as affecting as it is elevating, and the whole 
scene conceived in the highest possible spirit of mixed 
w r ildness and delicacy. 



A PLUME OF FEATHERS AND AN ALMOND-TREE. 
In this instance, which is the one he adduces in proof 
of his remark on the picturesque, the reader must agree 
with Coleridge, that the description (I mean of the almond- 
tree), however charming, is not fit for a picture : it wants 
accessories ; to say nothing of the reference to the image 
illustrated, and the feeling of too much minuteness and 
closeness in the very distance. Who is to paint the tender 
locks " every one," and the whisper of " every little 

breath ? " 

Upon the top of all his lofty crest 

A bunch of hairs discolour'd diversly, 

With sprinkled pearl and gold full richly dress'd, 

Did shake and seem to dance for jollity. 



SPENSEK. 119 

Like to an almond tree, ymounted high, 
On top of green Selinis all alone, 
With blossoms brave bedecked daintily, 
Whose tender locks do tremble every one, 
At every little breath that under heaven is blown. 

What an exquisite last line ! but the whole stanza is 
perfection. The word jollity seems to show the plump- 
ness of the plume ; what the fop in Moliere calls its 
embonpoint : 

Mascarille. — Hola, porteurs, hola! La, la, la, la, la, la. Je 
pense que ces marauds-la out dessein de me Ibriser a force de 
heurter contre les murailles et les paves. 

1 Porteur. — Dame ! c'est que la porte est etroite. Vous avez 
voulu aussi que nous soyons entres jusqu'ici. 

Mascarille. — Je le crois bien. Voudriez-vous, faquins, que j'ex- 
posasse l'embonpoint de mes plumes aux inclemences de la saison 
pluvieiise, et que j'allasse imprimer mes souliers en boue ? — Les 
Precieuses Ridicules, sc. 7. 

[Mascarille (to the sedan chairmen). — Stop, stop! "What the 
devil is all this ? Am I to be beaten to pieces against the walls and 
pavement ? 

Chairman. — Why, you see the passage is narrow. You told us to 
bring you right in. 

Mascarille. — Unquestionably. Would you have me expose the 
embonpoint of my feathers to the inclemency of the rainy season, and 
leave the impression of my pumps in the mud ?] 



Our gallery shall close with a piece of 

ENCHANTED MUSIC. 

JEftsoons they heard a most melodious sound 
Of all that might delight a dainty ear, 
Such as, at once, might not on living ground, 
Save in this paradise, be heard elsewhere : 



120 SPENSER. 

Pdglit hard it was for wight which did it hear 
To weet what manner music that might be, 
For all that pleasing is to living ear 
Was there consorted in one harmony ; 
Birds, voices, instruments, winds, waters, all agree. 

The joyous birds, shrouded in cheerful shade, 
Their notes unto the voice attemp'red sweet : 
Th' angelical, soft, trembling voices made 
To th' instruments divine respondence meet ; 
The silver sounding instruments did meet 
With the base murmur of the water s fall ; 
The water's fall, with difference discreet, 
Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call ; 
The gentle warbling wind low answered to all. ( 39 ) 



( 39 ) The gentle warbling wind, &c. 

This exquisite stanza is a specimen of perfect modula- 
tion, upon the principles noticed in the description of 
Archimago's Hermitage. The reader may, perhaps, try 
it upon them. " Compare it," says Upton, "with Tasso's 
Gierusalemme Liberata, canto 16, st. 12." Readers who 
understand Italian will gladly compare it, and see how far 
their countryman has surpassed the sweet poet of the 
south. 



MARLOWE. 

BORN, ACCORDING TO MALONE, ABOUT 1565,- 
DIED, 1593. 



If ever there was a born poet, Marlowe was one. He 
perceived things in their spiritual as well as material 
relations, and impressed them with a corresponding 
felicity. Rather, he struck them as with something sweet 
and glowing that rushes by ; — perfumes from a censer, — 
glances of love and beauty. And he could accumulate 
images into as deliberate and lofty a grandeur. Chapman 
said of him, that he stood 

Up to the chin in the Pierian flood. 
Drayton describes him as if inspired by the recollection : — 

Next Marlowe, bathed in the Thespian springs, 
Had in him those brave translunary tilings, 
That the first poets had ; his raptures were 
All air and fire, which made Ms verses clear : 
For that fine madness still he did retain, 
Which rightly should possess a poet's brain. 

But this happy genius appears to have had as unhappy a 
will, which obscured his judgment. It made him con- 



122 



MARLOWE. 



descend to write fustian for the town, in order to rule over 
it ; subjected him to the charge of impiety, probably for 
nothing but too scornfully treating irreverent notions of 
the Deity ; and brought him, in the prime of his life, to a 
violent end in a tavern. His plays abound in wilful and 
self-worshipping speeches, and every one of them turns 
upon some kind of ascendancy at the expense of other 
people. He was the head of a set of young men from the 
university, the Peeles, Greens, and others, all more or less 
possessed of a true poetical vein, who, bringing scholar- 
ship to the theatre, were intoxicated with the new graces 
they threw on the old bombast, carried to their height the 
vices as well as wit of the town, and were destined to see, 
with indignation and astonishment, their work taken out 
of their hands, and done better, by the uneducated inter- 
loper from Stratford-upon-Avon. 

Marlowe enjoys the singular and (so far) unaccountable 
honour of being the only English writer to whom Shak- 
speare seems to have alluded with approbation. In As 
You Like It, Phoebe says, 

Dead Shepherd ! now I know thy saw of might, — 
" Who ever lov'd that lov'd not at first sight ? " 

The "saw" is in Marlowe's Hero and Leander, a poem 
not comparable with his plays. 

The ranting part of Marlowe's reputation has been 
chiefly owing to the tragedy of Tamburlaine, a passage in 
which is laughed at in Henry the Fourth, and has become 
famous. Tamburlaine cries out to the captive monarchs 
whom he has yoked to his car, — 



MAELOWE. 123 

Holla, ye pampered jades of Asia, 
What ! can ye draw but twenty miles a day, 
And have so proud a chariot at your heels, 
And such a coachman as great Tamburlaine ? 

Then follows a picture drawn with real poetry : — 

The horse that guide the golden eye of Heaven, 

And blow the morning from their nostrils (read nosterils), 

Making their fiery gait above the clouds, 

Are not so honour' d in their governor, 

As you, ye slaves, in mighty Tamburlaine. 

It has latterly been thought that a genius like Marlowe 
could have had no hand in a play so bombastic as this 
huffing tragedy. But besides the weighty and dignified, 
though monotonous tone of his versification in many 
places (what Ben Jonson, very, exactly as well 'as finely, 
calls " Marlowe's mighty line "), there are passages in it 
of force and feeling, of which I doubt whether any of his 
contemporaries were capable in so sustained a degree, 
though Green and Peele had felicitous single lines, and 
occasionally a refined sweetness. Take, for instance, the 
noble verses to be found in the description of Tamburlaine 
himself, which probably suggested to Milton his " Atlan- 
tean shoulders " — " fit to bear mightiest monarchies " — 
and to Beaumont a fine image, which the reader will see 
in his Melancholy : — 

Of stature tall and straightly fashioned, 

Like his desire lift upward and divine, 

So large of limbs, his joints so strongly knit, 

Such breadth of shoulders as might mainly bear 

Old Atlas' burthen : — 

Pale of complexion, wrought in him with passion, &c. 



124 MARLOWE. 

By " passion " we are to understand, not anger, but deep 
emotions. Peele or Green might possibly have written 
the beautiful verse that closes these four lines : 

Kings of Argier, Moroccus, and of Fesse, 
You that have marched with happy Tamburlaine 
As far as from the frozen place of heaven 
Unto the watery morning's ruddy bower : — 

but the following is surely Marlowe's own : — 

As princely lions when they rouse themselves, 
Stretching their paws and threatening herds of beasts, 
So in his armour looketh Tamburlaine : 

and in the following is not only a hint of the scornful part 
of his style, such as commences the extract from the Jew 
of Malta, but the germ of those lofty and harmonious 
nomenclatures, which have been thought peculiar to Milton : 

So from the east unto the farthest west 

Shall Tamburlaine extend his puissant arm 

The gallies and those pilling brigandines 

That yearly sail to the Venetian gulf, 

And hover in the Straits for Christian wreck, 

Shall lie at anchor in the isle Arant, 

Until the Persian fleet and men of wars, 

Sailing along the Oriental sea, 

Have fetch 'd about the Indian continent, 

Even from Persepolis to Mexico, 

And thence unto the Straits of Jubaltdr. 

Milton never surpassed the elevation of that close. "Who 
also but Marlowe is likely to have written the fine passage 
extracted into this volume, under the title of Beauty beyond 
Expression, in which the thought argues as much expres- 
sion as the style a confident dignity ? Tamburlaine was 
most likely a joint-stock piece, got up from the manager's 



MARLOWE. 125 

chest by Marlowe, Nash, and perhaps half-a-dozen others ; 
for there are two consecutive plays on the subject, and the 
theatres of our own time are not unacquainted with this 
species of manufacture. 

But I am forgetting the plan of my book. Marlowe, 
like Spenser, is to be looked upon as a poet who had no 
native precursors. As Spenser is to be criticised with an 
eye to his poetic ancestors, who had nothing like the 
Fairy Queen, so is Marlowe with reference to the authors 
of Gorboduc. He got nothing from them ; he prepared 
the way for the versification, the dignity, and the pathos 
of his successors, who have nothing finer of the kind to 
show than the death of Edward the Second — not Shak- 
speare himself ; — and his imagination, like Spenser's, 
haunted those purely poetic regions of ancient fabling and 
modern rapture, of beautiful forms and passionate expres- 
sions, which they were the first to render the common 
property of inspiration, and whence their language drew 
" empyreal air." Marlowe and Spenser are the first of our 
poets who perceived the beauty of words ; not as apart 
from their significance, nor upon occasion only, as Chaucer 
did (more marvellous in that than themselves, or than the 
originals from whom he drew), but as a habit of the poetic 
mood, and as receiving and reflecting beauty through the 
feeling of the ideas. 



126 MABLOWE, 



THE JEW OF MALTA'S IDEA OF WEALTH, 

So that of thus much that return was made, 

And of the third part of the Persian ships, 

There was the venture summ'd and satisfied. 

As for those Samnites, and the men of Uz, 

That bought my Spanish oils and wines of Greece, ( J ■ 

Here have I purs'd their paltry silverlings. 

Fie ; what a trouble 't is to count this trash ! 

Well fare the Arabians, who so richly pay 

The things they traffic for with wedge of gold, 

Whereof a man may easily in a day 

Tell that which may maintain him all his life. 

The needy groom, that never finger'd groat, 

Would make a miracle of thus much coin ; 

But he whose steel-barr'd coffers are cramm'd full, 

And all his life-time hath been tired (read ti-er-ed), 

Wearying his fingers' ends with telling it, 

Would in his age be loth to labour so, 

And for a pound to sweat himself to death. 

Give me the merchants of the Indian mines, 

That trade in metal of the purest mould ; 

The Wealthy Moor, that in the eastern rocks 

Without control can pick his riches up, 

And in his house heap pearl like pebble-stones ; 

Receive them free, and sell them by the weight ; 

Bags of fiery op>als, sapphires, amethysts, 

Jacinths, hard topaz, grass-green emeralds, 

Beauteous rubies, sparkling diamonds, 

And seld-seen costly stones of so great price. 

As one of them indifferently rated, 

And of a carat of this quantity, 

May serve, in peril of calamity, 

To ransom great kings from ca0*mty : 

This is the ware wherein consists my wealth ; 

And thus, methinks, should men of judgment frame 

Their means of traffic from the vulgar trade, 



MAELOWE. 127 

And as their wealth increaseth, so inclose 

Infinite riches in a little room. 

But now how stands the wind ? 

Into what corner peers my halcyon's bill ? * 

Ha ! to the east ? yes ; see how stand the vanes ? 

East and by south. Why then, I hope my ships 

I sent for Egypt and the bordering isles 

Are gotten up by Nilus' winding banks ; 

Mine argosies from Alexandria, ( 2 ) 

Loaden with spice and silks, now under sail, 

Are smoothly gliding down by Candy shore 

To Malta, through our Mediterranean Sea. 



( ! ) " Samnites " and " men of Uz," and " Spanish oils ! " 

That is to say, countrymen and contemporaries of old 
Kome, of Arabian Job, and the modern Spanish merchants ! 
Marlowe, though he was a scholar, cared no more for geo- 
graphy and consistent history than Shakspeare. He took 
the world as he found it at the theatre, where ft w T as a 
mixture of golden-age innocence, tragical enormity, and a 
knowledge superior to all petty and transitory facts. 

( 2 ) Mine argosies from Alexandria, &c. 

Note the wonderful sweetness of these four lines, 
particularly the last. The variety of the vowels, the 
delicate alliteration, and the lapse of the two concluding 
verses, are equal, as a study, to anything in Spenser. 

* My halcyons hill : The halcyon is the figure on the vane. 



128 MABLOWE, 



A VISION OF HELEN. 

She passes between two Cupids, having been summoned from the 
next world by desire of Faustus. 

Faust. Was this the face that launched a thousand ships, 
And burnt the topmost towers of Ilium ? 
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss. — 
Her lips suck forth my soul ! see where it flies. 
Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again. 
Here will I dwell, for heav'n is in these lips, 
And all is dross that is not Helena. 
I will be Paris ; and for love of thee, 
Instead of Troy, shall Wittenberg be sack'd ; 
And I will combat with weak Menelaus, 
And wear my colours on my plumed crest : 
Yea, I will wound Achilles in the heel, 
And then return to Helen for a kiss. 
Oh, thou art fairer than the evening air, 
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars ; 
Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter, ( 3 ) 
When he appear'd to hapless Semele ; 
More lovely than the monarch of the sea, 
In wanton Arethusa's azure arms ; 
.And none but thou shalt be my paramour! 



( 3 ) Brighter art thou, &c. 
Much cannot be said of the five lines here ensuing ; 
but their retention was necessary to the entire feeling or 
classical association of the speech, if not to a certain 
lingering modulation. 



MARLOWE. 129 

MYTHOLOGY AND COURT AMUSEMENTS. 

Oaveston meditates how to govern Edward the Second. 

I must have wanton poets, pleasant wits, 

Musicians, that with touching of a string 

May draw the pliant king which way I please. 

Music and poetry are his delight : 

Therefore I'll have Italian masks by night ; 

Sweet speeches, comedies, and pleasing shows ; 

And in the day when he shall walk abroad, 

Like sylvan nymphs my pages shall be clad : 

My men, like satyrs grazing on the lawns, 

Shall with their goat : feet dance the antic hay. 

Sometimes a lovely boy in Dian's shape, 

With hair that gilds the water as it glides, 

Shall bathe him in a spring ; and there, hard by, 

One, like Actseon, peeping through the grove, 

Shall by the angry goddess be transformed ; 

And running in the likeness of a hart, 

By yelping hounds pull'd down, shall seem to die — 

Such things as these best please his Majesty. 



BEAUTY BEYOND EXPRESSION. 

If all the pens that ever poets held 
Had fed the feeling of their masters' thoughts, 
And ev'ry sweetness that inspired their hearts, 
And minds, and muses on admired themes ; 
If all the heavenly quintessence they 'stil 
From their immortal flowers of poesy, 
Wherein, as in a mirror, we perceive 
The highest reaches of a human wit ; 
If these had made one poem's period, 
And all combin'd in beauty's worthiness, 
Yet should there hover in their restless heads 
One thought, one grace, one wonder, at the lest, 
Which into words no virtue can digest. 

9 



X30 MARLOWE, 



THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE. 

Come live with one and be my love, 
And we will all the pleasures prove, 
That hill and valley, grove and field, 
And all the craggy mountains yield. 
There will we sit upon the rocks, 
And see the shepherds feed their flocks 
By sliallmv rivers, to whose falls 
Melodious birds sing madrigals. 
There will I make thee beds of roses, 
With a thousand fragrant posies ; 
A cap of flowers and a kirtle 
Embroider' d all with leaves of myrtle ; 
A gown made of the finest wool, 
Which from our pretty lambs we pull ; 
Slippers lin'd choicely for the cold, 
With buckles of the purest gold ; 
A belt of straw, and ivy buds, 
With coral clasps, and amber studs. 

The shepherd swains shall dance and sing 
For thy delight each May morning ; 
And if these pleasures may thee move, 
Then live with me, and be my love. 

This song is introduced, not so much for its poetical 
excellence (though it is quite what a poet would write on 
the occasion), as because it is one of those happy embodi- 
ments of a thought which all the world thinks at some 
time or other ; and which therefore takes wonderfully with 
them when somebody utters it. The " golden buckles " 
and "amber studs " are not to be considered as a contra- 
diction to the rest of the imagery ; for we are to suppose 
it a gentlewoman to whom the invitation is addressed, and 
with whom her bridegroom proposes to go and play at 



MARLOWE. 131 

shepherd and shepherdess, at once realizing the sweets 
of lowliness and the advantages of wealth. A charming 
fancy! and realized too sometimes; though Sir Walter 
Ealeigh could not let it alone, but must needs refute it in 
some excellent verses, too good for the occasion. Sir 
Walter, a great but wilful man (in some respects like 
Marlowe himself, and a true poet too — I wish he had 
written more poetry), could pass and ultimately lose his 
life in search of El Dorados, — whole countries made of 
gold, — but doubted whether an innocent young lady 
and gentleman, or so, should aim at establishing a bit of 
Arcadia. 

There are so many copies of this once-popular produc- 
tion, all different, and none quite consistent, owing, no 
doubt, to oral repetitions and the licence of musical setting 
(for no copy of it is to be found coeval with its produc- 
tion), that, after studious comparison of several, I have 
exercised a certain discretion in the one here printed, and 
omitted also an ill-managed repetition of the burden : 
— not, of course, with the addition of a syllable. Such 
readers, therefore, as it may concern, are warned not to 
take the present copy for granted, at the expense of the 
others ; but to compare them all, and make his choice. 



SHAKSPEARE. 

BORN, 1564 — DIED, 1616, 



Shakspeare is here in his purely poetical creations, apart 
(as much as it is possible for such a thinker and humanist 
to be) from thought and humanity. There is nothing 
wanting either to the imagination or fancy of Shakspeare. 
The one is lofty, rich, affecting, palpable, subtle ; the 
other full of grace, playfulness, and variety. He is equal 
to the greatest poets in grandeur of imagination ; to all in 
diversity of it ; to all in fancy ; to all in everything else, 
except in a certain primaeval intensity, such as Dante's 
and Chaucer's ; and in narrative poetry, which (to judge 
from Venus and Adonis, and the Rape of Lucrece) he 
certainly does not appear to have had a call to write. He 
over-informed it with reflection. It has been supposed 
that when Milton spoke of Shakspeare as 

Fancy's child 
Warbling his native wood-notes wild, 

the genealogy did him injustice. But the critical distinc- 
tion between Fancy and Imagination was hardly deter- 
mined till of late. Collins himself, in his Ode on the 
Poetical Character, uses the word Fancy to imply both, 



SHAKSPEABE. 133 

even when speaking of Milton ; and so did Milton, I con- 
ceive, when speaking of Shakspeare. The propriety of the 
words, " native wood-notes wild," is not so clear. I take 
them to have heen hastily said by a learned man of an 
unlearned. But Shakspeare, though he had not a college 
education, was as learned as any man, in the highest sense 
of the word, by a scholarly intuition. He had the spirit of 
learning. He was aware of the education he wanted, and 
by some means or other supplied it. He could anticipate 
Milton's own Greek and Latin : 

Tortive and errant from his course of growth — 
The multitudinous seas incarnadine — 
A pudency so rosy, &c. 

In fact, if Shakspeare's poetry has any fault, it is that of 
being too learned ; too over-informed with thought and 
allusion. His wood-notes wild surpass Haydn and Bach. 
His wild roses were all twenty times double. He thinks 
twenty times to another man's once, and makes all his 
serious characters talk as well as he could himself, — with 
a superabundance of wit and intelligence. He knew, 
however, that fairies must have a language of their own ; 
and hence, perhaps, his poetry never runs in a more 
purely poetical vein than when he is speaking in their 
persons; — I mean it is less mixed up with those heaps 
of comments and reflections which, however the wilful 
or metaphysical critic may think them suitable on all 
occasions, or succeed in persuading us not to wish them 
absent, by reason of their stimulancy to one's mental 
activity, are assuredly neither always proper to dramatic, 



134 SHAKSPEARE. 

still less to narrative poetry; nor yet so opposed to all 
idiosyncrasy on the writer's part as Mr. Coleridge would 
have us believe. It is pretty manifest, on the contrary, 
that the over-informing intellect which Shakspeare thus 
carried into all his writings, must have been a personal 
as well as literary peculiarity ; and as the events he speaks 
of are sometimes more interesting in their nature than 
even a superabundance of his comments can make them, 
readers may be pardoned in sometimes wishing that he 
had let them speak a little more briefly for themselves. 
Most people would prefer Ariosto's and Chaucer's narra- 
tive poetry to his ; the Griselda, for instance, and the 
story of Isabel, — to the Bape of Lucrece. The intense 
passion is enough. The misery is enough. We do not 
want even the divinest talk about what Nature herself 
tends to petrify into silence. Curce ingentes stupent. 
Our divine poet had not quite outlived the times 
when it was thought proper for a writer to say every- 
thing that came into his head. He was a student of 
Chaucer ; he beheld the living fame of Spenser ; and his 
fellow- dramatists did not help to restrain him. The 
players told Ben Jonson that Shakspeare never blotted 
a line ; and Ben says he was thought invidious for ob- 
serving that he wished he had blotted a thousand. He 
sometimes, he says, required stopping. {Aliquanclo suffla- 
minandus erat.) Was this meant to apply to his con- 
versation as well as writing ? Did he manifest a like 
exuberance in company ? Perhaps he would have done so, 
but for modesty and self-knowledge. To keep his elo- 
quence altogether within bounds was hardly possible ; and 



SHAKSPEARE. 135 

who could have wished it had been ? Would that he had 
had a Boswell a hundred times as voluminous as Dr. John- 
son's to take all down ! Bacon's Essays would have 
seemed like a drop out of his ocean. He would have 
swallowed dozens of Hobbeses by anticipation, like larks 
for his supper. 

If Shakspeare, instead of proving himself the greatest 
poet in the world, had written nothing but the fanciful 
scenes in this volume, he would still have obtained a high 
and singular reputation, — that of Poet of the Fairies. 
For he may be said to have invented the Fairies ; that is 
to say, he was the first that turned them to poetical 
account ; that bore them from clownish neighbourhoods to 
the richest soils of fancy and imagination. 



WHOLE STORY OF THE TEMPEST 

ENCHANTMENT, MONSTROSITY, AND LOVE. 

The whole story of the Tempest is really contained in 
this scene : — 

Mira. I pray you, sir, 

(For still 'tis beating in my mind,) your reason 
For raising this sea-storm ? 

Pro. Know thus far forth : — 

By accident most strange, bountiful fortune, 
Now my dear lady, hath mine enemies 
Brought to this shore : and by my prescience 
I find my zenith doth depend upon 
A most auspicious star ; whose influence 



136 SHAKSPEAKE. 

If now I court not, but omit, my fortunes 
Will ever after droop. Here cease more questions ; 
Thou art inclin'd to sleep ; 'tis a good dulness, 
And give it way ; — I know thou canst not choose. — 

[Miranda sleeps. 
Come away, servant, come ; I am ready now ; 
Approach, my Ariel ; come. 

Enter Ariel. 

Ari. All hail, great master ! grave sir, hail ! I come 
To answer thy best pleasure, be 't to fly, 
To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride 
On the curl'd clouds : to thy strong bidding task 
Ariel, and all his quality. 

Pro. Hast thou, spirit, 

Perform'd to point the tempest that I bade thee ? 

Ari. To every article. 
I boarded the king's ship ; now on the beak, 
Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin, 
I flam d amazement. Sometimes I 'd divide, 
And burn in many places ; on the top-mast, 
The yards, and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly, 
Then meet and join : Jove's lightnings, the precursors 
(J the dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary 
And sight- outrunning were not : the fire, and cracks 
Of sulphurous roaring, the most mighty Neptune 
Seem'd to besiege, and make his bold waves tremble ; 
. Yea, his dread trident shake. 

Pro. My brave spirit ! 

Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil 
Would not infect his reason ? 

Ari. Not a soul 

But felt a fever of the mad, and play'd 
Some tricks of desperation : all, but mariners, 
Plung'd in the foaming brine, and quit the vessel, 
Then all a-fire with me : the king's son, Ferdinand, 
With hair up-staring (then like reeds, not hair), 
Was the first man that leap'd ; cried, " Hell is empty y 
And all the devils are here." 



SHAKSPEABE. 137 

Pro. Why, that 's my spirit ! 

But was not this nigh shore ? 

Ari. Close by, my master. 

Pro. But are they, Ariel, safe ? 

Ari. Not a hair perish'd ; 

On their sustaining garments not a blemish, 
But fresher than before ; and as thou bad'st me, 
In troops I have dispers'd them 'bout the isle : 
The king's son have I landed by himself; 
Whom I left cooling of the air with sighs, 
In an odd angle of the isle, and sitting, 
His arms in this sad knot. 

Pro. Of the king's ship, 

The mariners, say how thou hast dispos'd, 
And all the rest o' the fleet ? 

Ari. Safely in harbour 

Is the king's ship ; in the deep nook, where once 
Thou calVdst me up at midnight to fetch dew 
From the still-vexed Bermoothes, there she's hid ; 
The mariners all under hatches stow'd ; 
Whom, with a charm join'd to their sufter'd labour, 
I have left asleep ; and for the rest o' the fleet, 
Which I dispers'd, they all have met again ; 
And are upon the Mediterranean flote, 
Bound sadly home for Naples ; 
Supposing that they saw the king's ship wreck'd, 
And his great person perish. 

Pro. . Ariel, thy charge 

Exactly is perform'd ; but there's more work : 
What is the time o' the day ? 

Ari. Past the mid season. 

Pro. At least two glasses. The time 'twixt six and now 
Must by us both be spent most preciously. 

Ari. Is there more toil? Since thou dost give me pains, 
Let me remember thee what thou hast promis'd, 
Which is not yet perform'd me. 

Pro. How now ? moody ? 

What is 't thou canst demand ? 

Ari. My liberty. 

Pro. Before the time be out ? no more. 



138 SHAKSPEAKE. 

Ari. I pray thee 

Remember, I have done thee worthy service ; 
Told thee no lies, made no mistakings, serv'd 
Without or grudge or grumblings : thou didst promise 
To bate me a full year. 

Pro. Dost thou forget 

From what a torment I did free thee? 

Ari. No. 

Pro. Thou dost ; and think'st 
It much to tread the ooze of the salt deep ; 
To run upon the sharp wind of the north ; 
To do me business in the veins of the earth, 
When it is bak'd with frost. 

Ari. I do not, sir. 

Pro. Thou liest, malignant thing ! Hast thou forgot 
The foul witch Sycorax, who, with age and envy, 
Was grown into a hoop ? Hast thou forget her ? 

Ari. No, sir. 

Pro. Thou hast : where was she born ? speak ; tell me. 

Ari. Sir, in Argier. 

Pro. O, was she so ? I must, 

Once in a month, recount what thou hast been, 
Which thou forget'st. This damn'd witch, Sycorax, 
For mischiefs manifold, and sorceries terrible 
To enter human hearing, from Argier, 
Thou know'st, was banish'd ; for one thing she did, 
They would not take her life. Is not this true ? 
- Ari. Ay, sir. 

Pro. This blue-eyed hag was hither brought with child, 
And here was left by the sailors. Thou, my slave, 
As thou report'st thyself, was then her servant : 
And, for thou wast a spirit too delicate 
To act her earthy and abhorrd commands, 
Refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee 
By help of her more potent ministers, 
And in her most unmitigable rage, 
Into a cloven pine : within which rift 
Imprison'd, thou didst painfully remain 
A dozen years ; within which space she died, 
And left thee there ; where thou didst vent thy groans, 



SHAKSPEARE. 



139 



As fast as mill-wheels strike : Then was this island 
(Save for the son that she did litter here, 
A f redded whelp, hag-born) not honoured with 
A human shape. 

An. Yes ; Caliban her son. 

Pro. Dull thing, I say so ; he, that Caliban, 
Whom now I keep in service. Thou best know'st 
What torment I did find thee in ; thtj groans 
Did make wolves howl, and penetrate the breasts 
Of ever angry bears : it was a torment 
To lay upon the damn'd, which Sycorax 
Could not again undo ; it was mine art, 
When I arriv'd, and heard thee, that made gape 
The pine and let thee out. 

Ari. I thank thee, master. 

Pro. If thou more murmur' st, I will rend an oak, 
And peg thee in his knotty entrails, till 
Thou hast howl'd away twelve winters. 

Ari. Pardon, master : 

I will be correspondent to command, 
And do my spiriting gently. 

Pro. Do so ; and after two days 

I will discharge thee. 

Ari. That's my noble master ! 

What shall I do ? say what : what shall I do ? 

Pro. Go make thyself like to a nymph o' the sea ; 
Be subject to no sight but mine ; invisible 
To every eyeball else. Go, take this shape, 
And hither come in't : hence, with diligence. [Exit Ariel. 

Awake, dear heart, awake ! thou hast slept well : 
Awake ! 

Mira. The strangeness of your story put 
Heaviness in me. 

Pro. Shake it off : come on ; 

We'll visit Caliban, my slave, who never 
Yields us kind answer. 

Mira. 'Tis a villain, sir, 

I do not love to look on. 

Pro. But as 'tis, 

We cannot miss him ; he does make our fire, 



140 



SHAKSPEAKE. 

Fetch in oiir wood, and serves in offices 
That profit us. What ho ! slave ! Caliban ! 
Thou earth thou ! speak. 

Call, {within.) There's wood enough within. 

Pro. Come forth, I say : there's other business for thee 
Come forth, thou tortoise ! when ? 



Re-enter Ariel, like a water-nymph. 

Fine apparition ! my quaint Ariel ! 
Hark in thine ear. 

AH. My lord, it shall be done. 

[Exit. 

Pro. Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself 
Upon thy wicked dam, come forth ! 



Enter Caliban. 

Cali. As wicked dew as e'er my mother brush' d 
With raven s feather from unwholesome fen 
Drop on you both ! a south-west blow on ye, 
And blister you all o'er ! 

Pro. For this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramp3, 
Side- stitches that shall pen thy breath up ; urchins 
Shall, for that vast of night that they may work, 
All exercise on thee : thou shalt be pinch'd 
As thick as honey-combs, each pinch more stinging 
Than bees that made them. 

Cali. I must eat my dinner ! 

This island's mine, by Sycorax, my mother, 
Which thou tak'st from me. When thou earnest first, 
Thou strokedst me, and madest much of me ; wouldst give me 
Water with berries in't ; and teach me how 
To name the bigger light, and how the less, 
That burn by day and night : and then I lov'd thee, 
And show'd thee all the qualities o' the isle, 
The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place, and fertile ; 
Cursed be I that did so ! All the charms 
Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you ! 



SHAKSPEARE. 141 

For I am all the subjects that you have, 
Which first was mine own king ; and here you sty me 
In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me 
The rest of the island. 

Pro. Thou most lying slave, 

Whom stripes may move, not kindness,— I have us'd thee, 
Filth as thou art, with human care : and lodg'd thee 
In mine own cell, till thou didst seek to violate 
The honour of my child. 

CalL O ho, ho ! would it had been done ! 
Thou didst prevent me ; I had peopled else 
This isle with Calibans. 

Pro. Abhorred slave, 

Which any print of goodness will not take, 
Being capable of all ill ! I pitied thee, 
Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour 
One thing or other ; when thou didst not, savage, 
Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble, like 
A thing most brutish, I endow'd thy purposes 
With words that made them known : but thy vile race, 
Though thou didst learn, had that in't which good natures 
Could not abide to be with ; therefore wast thou 
Deservedly confin'd into this rock, 
Who hadst deserved more than a prison. 

Call. You taught me language ; and my profit on't 
Is, / know how to curse : the red plague rid you, 
For learning me your language ! 

Pro. Hag-seed, hence ! 

Fetch us in fuel ; and be quick,»thou wert best, 
To answer other business. Shrug'st thou, malice ? 
If thou neglect'st, or dost unwillingly 
What I command, I'll rack thee with old cramps ; 
Fill all thy bones with aches ; make thee roar, 
That beasts shall tremble at thy din. 

Call. No, 'pray thee ! 

I must obey : his art is of such power, [Aside. 
It would control my dam's god, Setebos, 
And make a vassal of him. 

Pro. So, slave ; hence ! 

[Exit Caliban. 



142 



SHAKSPEAEE. 

Re-enter Ariel invisible, plaijing and singing ; Ferdinand 
following him. 

Ariel's Song. 

Come unto these yellow sands, 

And then take hands ; 
Court 'sied when you have, and Jciss'd 

(The wild waves whist), 
Foot it featly here and there ; 
And, sweet sprites, the burden bear. 

Hark, hark ! 
[Burden. Bowgh, wowgh. (JDispersedly)~\ 

The watch-dogs bark : 
[Bur. Bowgh, wowgh. (Dispersedly)'] 

Hark, hark ! I hear 
The strain of strutting chanticlere 
Cry, Cock-a-doodle-doo ! 

Fer. Where should this music be ? i' the air, or the earth ? 
It sounds no more ; — and sure it waits upon 
Some god of the island. Sitting on a bank, 
"Weeping again the king my father's wreck, 
This music crept by me upon the waters ; 
Allaying both their fury and my passion 
W T ith its sweet air ; thence I have follow'd it, 
Or it hath drawn me rather — But 'tis gone — 
No, it begins again. 

Ariel sings. 
Full fathom Jive thy father lies ; 

Of his bones are coral made ; 
Those are pearls that were his eyes ; 

Nothing of him that doth fade, 
But doth suffer a sea-change 
Into something rich and strange. 
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his Jcnell ; 
Hark ! now I Jiear them, — ding, dong, bell. 

[Burden. Ding-dong. 

Fer. The ditty does remember my drowned father. 
This is no mortal business, nor no sound 
That the earth owes.— I hear it now above me. 



SHAKSPEARE. 143 

Pro. The fringed curtains of thine eye advance, (') 
And say what thou seest yond ! 

Mira. What is 't ? a spirit ? 

Lord, how it looks about ! Believe me, sir, 
It carries a brave form : — but 't is a spirit. 

Pro. No, wench ; it eats and sleeps, and hath such senses 
As we have, — such. This gallant, which thou seest, 
Was in the wreck ; and but he's something stain'd 
With grief, that's beauty's canker, thou might'st call him 
A goodly person : he hath lost his fellows, 
And strays about to find them. 

Mira. I might call him 

A thing divine ; for nothing natural 
I ever saw so noble. 

Pro. It goes on, [Aside. 

As my soul prompts it : — Spirit, fine spirit ! I'll free thee 
Within two days for this. 

Per. Most sure, the goddess 

On whom these airs attend ! — Vouchsafe, my prayer 
May know if you remain upon this island ; 
And that you will some good instruction give, 
How I may bear me here. My prime request, 
Which I do last pronounce, is, O, you wonder ! 
If you be maid, or no ? 

Mira. No wonder, sir ; 

But certainly a maid. 

Per. My language ! heavens ! 

I am the best of them that speak this speech, 
Were I but where 't is spoken.' 

Pro. How ! the best ? 

What wert thou, if the King of Naples heard thee ? 

Per. A single thing, as I am now, that wonders 
To hear thee speak of Naples. He does hear me ; 
And, that he does, I weep : myself am Naples ; ( 2 ) 
Who with mine eyes, ne'er since at ebb, beheld 
The king my father wreck'd. 

Mira. Alack for mercy ! 

Per. Yes, faith, and all his lords ; the Duke of Milan, 
And his brave son, being twain. 



144 SHAKSPEAEE. 

Pro. The Duke of Milan, 

And his more braver daughter, could control thee, 
If now 'twere fit to do 't. — At the first sight [Aside. 
They have chang'd eyes ! — Delicate Ariel, 
I'll set thee free for this ! 



(') The fringed curtains of thine eye advance. 
Why Shakspeare should have condescended to the 
elaborate nothingness, not to say nonsense of this meta- 
phor (for what is meant by advancing "curtains?"), I 
cannot conceive ; that is to say, if he did condescend ; for 
it looks very like the interpolation of some pompous, 
declamatory player. Pope has put it into his treatise on 
the Bathos. 

( 2 ) Myself am Naples. 

This is a very summary and kingly style. Shakspeare 
is fond of it. "How now, France?" says King John 
to King Philip. " I'm dying, Egypt ? " says Antony to 
Cleopatra. 



MACBETH AND THE WITCHES. 

This scene fortunately comprises a summary of the 
whole subsequent history of Macbeth. 

A dark Cave. In the middle, a Cauldron boiling. Tliunder. 
Enter three Witches. 

1st Wi. Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd. 
2nd Wi. Thrice ; and once the hedge-pig whin'd. 
3rd. Wi. Harper cries : — 'Tis time, 'tis time. 



SHAKSPEAEE* 14.5 

1st Wi. Round about the cauldron go ; 

In the poison'd entrails throw 

Toad, that under a cold stone 

Days and nights hast thirty-one 

Swelter d venom sleeping got, 

Boil thou first i' the charmed pot ! 
All. Double, double, toil and trouble ; 

Fire, burn ; and, cauldron, bubble. 
'2nd Wi. Fillet of a fenny snake, 

In the cauldron boil and bake : 

Eye of newt, and toe of frog, 

Wool of bat, and tongue of dog, 

Adder's fork, and blind- worm's sting. 

Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing, 

For a charm of powerful trouble, 

Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. 
All. Double, double, toil and trouble; 

Fire, burn ; and, cauldron, bubble, 
3/ I Wi. Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf; 

Witches' mummy ; maw, and gulf, 

Of the ravin d salt-sea shark ; 

Root of hemlock, digg'd i' the dark ; 

Liver of blaspheming Jew ; 

Gall of goat, and slips of yew, 

Sliver d in the moon's eclipse ; 

Nose of Turk, and Tartar s lips ; 

Finger of birth- strangled babe, 

Ditch-deliver d by a drab, 

Make the gruel thick and slab ; 

Add thereto a tiger's chawdron, 

For the ingredients of our cauldron. 
All. Double, double, toil and trouble, 

Fire burn ; and, cauldron, bubble. 
2nd Wi. Cool it with a baboon's blood, 

Then the charm is firm and good. 

Enter Hecate and the other three Witches. 

Sec. 0, well done ! I commend your pains ; 
And every one shall share i' the gains. 

10 



146 SHAKSPEARE. 

And now about the cauldron sing, 
Like elves and fairies in a ring, 
Enchanting all that you put in, 

(Music and a Song, " Black spirits," &c.) 

2nd Wi. By the pricking of my thumbs, 
Something wicked this way comes. 
Open, locks, whoever knocks. 

Enter Macbeth. 

Mac. How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags. 
What is't you do ? 

All. A deed without a name. 

Mac. I conjure you, by that which you profess 
(Howe'er you come to know it) , answer me : 
Though you untie the .winds, and let them fight 
Against the churches : though the yeasty waves 
Confound and swallow navigation up ; 
Though bladed corn be lodg'd, and trees blown down ; 
Though castles topple on their warders' heads ; 
Though palaces and pyramids do slope 
Their heads to their foundations ; though the treasure 
Of nature's germins tumble all together, 
Even till destruction sicken, answer me 
To what I ask you. 

1st Wi. Speak. 

2nd Wi. Demand. 

3rd Wi. We'll answer. 

1st Wi. Say, if thou'dst rather hear it from our mouths, 
Or from our masters' ? 

Mac. Call them, let me see them. - 

1st Wi. Pour in sow's blood, that hath eaten 
Her nine farrow ; grease that's sweaten 
From the murderers gibbet, throw 
Into the flame. 

All. Come, high or low ; 

Thyself, and office, deftly show. 

Thunder. An Apparition of an armed Head rises 
Mac. Tell me, thou unknown power, — 



SHAKSPEAEE. 147 

1st Wi. He Mows thy thought , 

Hear his speech, but say thou nought. 

App. Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! beware Macduff; 
Beware the Thane of Fife. — Dismiss me ; — Enough. 



Mac. Whate'er thou art, for thy good caution thanks ; 
Thou hast harp'd my fear aright : — -But one word more ; — 

1st Wi. He will not be commanded ; Here's another, 
More potent than the first. 

Thunder. An Apparition of a bloody Child rises. ( 3 ) 

App. Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth!— 

Mac. Had I three ears, I'd hear thee. 

App. Be bloody, bold, and resolute ; laugh to scorn 
The power of man, for none of woman born 
Shall harm Macbeth. [Descends. 

Mac. Then live, Macduff : what need I fear of thee ? 
But yet I'll make assurance doubly sure, 
And take a bond of fate : thou shalt not live ; 
That I may tell pale-hearted fear it lies, 
And sleep in spite of thunder. — What is this ? 

Thunder. An Apparition of a Child crowned, with a tree in his 
hand, rises. 

That rises like the issue of a king ; 

And wears upon his baby-brow the round 

And top of sovereignty ? 

All. Listen, but speak not to 't. 

App. Be lion-mettled, proud \ and take no care 
Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are ; 
Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be, until 
Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill 
Shall come against him. 



{Descends. 



Mac. That will never be ; 

Who can impress the forest ; bid the tree 
Unfix his earth-bound root ? Sweet bodements ! good 
Rebellious head, rise never, till the wood 
Of Birnam rise, and our high-plac'd Macbeth 
Shall live the lease of nature, pay his breath 



148 SHAKSPEAEE. 

To time and mortal custom. — Yet my heart 
Throbs to know one thing : Tell me (if your art 
Can tell so much), shall Banquo's issue ever 
Reign in the kingdom ? 

All. Seek to know no more. 

Mac. I will be satisfied : deny me this, 
And an eternal curse fall on you ! Let me know — 
"Why sinks that cauldron ? and what noise is this ? 

[Hautboys. 

1st Wi. Show ! 

2nd Wi. Show ! 

Srd Wi. Show ! 

All. Show his eyes and grieve his heart, 
Come like shadows, so depart. 

Eight Kings appear, and pass over tlie stage in order ; the last with a 
glass in his hand ; Banquo following. 

Mac. Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo ; down ! 
Thy crown does sear mine eyeballs : — And thy hair, 
Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the first ; — 
A third is like the former. — Filthy hags ! 
Why do you show me this ? a fourth ? Start, eyes ! 
What ! will the line stretch out to the crack of doom ? 
Another yet ? — A seventh ? I'll see no more : 
And yet the eighth appears, who bears a glass 
Which shows me many more ; and some I see, 
That twofold balls and treble sceptres carry : 
Horrible sight ! — Ay, now, I see, 'tis true ; 
For the blood-bolter' d Banquo smiles upon me, 
And points at them for his. — What, is this so? 
1st Wi. Ay, sir, all this is so : — But why 

Stands Macbeth thus amazedly ? 

Come, sisters, cheer we up his sprites, 

And show the best of our delights : 

I'll charm the air to give a sound, 

While you perform your antique round ; 

That this great king may kindly say, 

Our duties did his welcome pay. 

(Music. The Witches dance, and vanish.) 



SHAKSPEARE. 149 

Mac. Where are they? Gone? — Let this pernicious hour 
Stand aye accursed in the calendar ! — 
Come in, without there ! 

Enter Lenox. 

Len. What's your grace's will? 

Mac. Saw you the weird sisters? 

Len. No, my lord. 

Mac. Came they not by you ? 

Len. No, indeed, my lord. 

Mae. Infected be the air whereon they ride ; 
And damn'd all those that trust them ! — I did hear 
The galloping of horse ; who was't came by ? 

Len. Tis two or three, my lord, that bring you word, 
Macduff is fled to England. 

Mac. Fled to England ! 

Len. Ay, my good lord. 

Mae. Time, thou anticipat'st my dread exploits : 
The nighty purpose never is o'ertook, 
Unless the deed go with it : From this moment, 
The very firstlings of my heart shall be 
The firstlings of my hand. And even now 
To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done : 
The castle of Macduff I will surprise ; 
Seize upon Fife ; give to the edge o' the sword 
His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls 
That trace him in his line. No boasting like a fool ; 
This deed I'll do before this purpose cool ; 
But no more sights ! ( 4 ) — Where are these gentlemen? 
Come, bring me where they are. 

[Exeunt. 



( 3 ) Apparition of a bloody Child. 
The idea of a " bloody child," and of his being more 
potent than the armed head, and one of the masters of the 
witches, is very dreadful. So is that of the child crowned, 
with a tree in his hand. They impersonate, it is true, 



150 SHAKSPEARE. 

certain results of the war, the destruction of Macduff's 
children, and the succession of Banquo's ; but the imagi- 
nation does not make these reflections at first; and the 
dreadfulness still remains, of potent demons speaking in 
the shapes of children. 

( 4 ) But no more sights. 
What a world of horrors is in this little familiar 
phrase ! 



THE QUARREL OF OBERON AND TITANIA. 
A Faiey Drama. 

I have ventured to give the extract this title, because 
it not only contains the whole story of the fairy part of the 
Midsummer Night's Dream, but by the omission of a few 
lines, and the transposition of one small passage (for which 
I beg the reader's indulgence), it actually forms a separate 
little play. It is nearly such in the greater play; and its 
isolation was easily, and not at all injuriously effected, 
by the separation of the Weaver from his brother 
mechanicals. 

Enter Oberon at one door with his train ; and Tetania at 
another with hers. 

Ober. Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania. 

Tit. What, jealous Oberon ! Fairies, skip hence ; 
I have forsworn his bed and company. 

Ober. Tarry, rash wanton ; am not I thy lord ? 

Tit. Then I must be thy lady ; but I know 
When thou hast stol'n away from fairy-land, 



SHAKSPEAKE. 151 

And in the shape of Corin sat all day- 
Playing on pipes of corn, and versing love 
To amorous Phillida. "Why art thou here, 
Come from the furthest steep of India, ( 5 ) 
But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon, 
Your buskin'd mistress and your warrior love, 
To Theseus must be wedded ; and you come 
To give their bed joy and prosperity ? 

Ober. How canst thou thus, for shame, Titania, 
Glance at my credit with Hippolyta, 
Knowing I know thy love to Theseus ? 
Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night 
From Perigenia, whom he ravished ? 
And make him with fair JEgle break his faith, 
With Ariadne, and Antiopa? 

Tit. These are the forgeries of jealousy : 
And never since the middle summer's spring, 
Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead, 
By paved fountain, or by rushy brook, 
Or on the beached margent of the sea, 
To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind, 
But with thy brawls thou hast disturbed our sport. 
Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain, 
As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea 
Contagious fogs ; which falling on the land, 
Have every pelting river made so proud, 
That they have overborne their continents ; 
The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain, 
The pioughman lost his sweat,, and the green corn 
Hath rotted, ere his youth attain d a beard : 
The fold stands empty in the drowned field, 
And crows are fatted with the murrain flock ; 
The nine men's morris * is filled up with mud ; 
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green, 
For lack of tread, are undistinguishable ; 
The human mortals want their winter here : 



* Nine mens morris : A rustic game, played with stones upon 
lines cut in the ground. 



152 SHAKSPEARE. 

No night is now with hymn or carol blest : 

Therefore the moon, the governess of floods. 

Pale in her anger, washes all the air, 

That rheumatic diseases do abound. — 

And thorough this distemperature, we see 

The seasons alter ; hoary-headed frosts 

Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose ; 

And on old Hyems' chin, and icy crown, 

An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds 

Is, as in mockery, set. The spring, the summer, 

The chilling autumn, angry winter, change 

Their wonted liveries ; and the mazed world, 

By their increase, now knows not which is which : 

And this same progeny of evil comes 

From our debate, from our dissension : 

We are their parents and original. 

Ober. Do you amend it then : it lies in you : 
Why should Titania cross her Oberon ? 
I do but beg a little changeling boy, 
To be my henchman. * 

Tit. Set your heart at rest ; 

The fairy land buys not the child of me. 
His mother was a vot'ress of my order ; 
And, in the spiced Indian air, by night, 
Full often hath she gossip'd by my side ; 
And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands, 
Marking the embarked traders on the flood ; 
When we have laughed to see the sails conceive 
And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind : 
Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait, 
Following (her womb then rich with my young squire) 
Would imitate ; and sail upon the land, 
To fetch me trifles and return again, 
As from a voyage, rich with merchandise. 
But she, being mortal, of that boy did die ; 
And, for her sake, I do rear up her boy ; 
And, for her sake, I will not part with him. 

Ober. How long within this wood intend you stay ? 

* Henchman : Page, 



SHAKSPEAKE. 153 

Tit. Perchance till after Theseus' wedding-day. 
If you will patiently dance in our round, 
And see our moonlight revels, go with us ; 
If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts. 

Ober. Give me that boy, and I will go with thee. 

Tit. Not for thy fairy kingdom. — Fairies, away : 
We shall chide downright, if I longer stay. 

[Exeunt Titania and her train. 

Ober. Well, go thy way : thou shalt not from this grove, 
Till I torment thee for this injury. — 
My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou remember'st 
Since once I sat upon a promontory, 
And heard a mermaid, on a dolphins bach, 
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath, 
That the rude sea grew civil at her song ; 
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres, 
To hear the sea-maid's music. 

Puck. I remember. 

Ober. That very time I saw (but thou couldst not), 
Flying between the cold moon and the earth, 
Cupid all amid : a certain aim he took 
At a fair vestal, throned by the west ; * 
And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow, 
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts: 
But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft 
Quench' d in the chaste beams of the wat'ry moon : 
And the imperial votaress pass' d on 
In maiden meditation, fancy free. 
Yet mark'd I where the bolt of, Cupid fell : 
It fell upon a little western flower, — 
Before, milk-white ; now purple with love's wound, 
And maidens call it Love-in-idleness, f 
Fetch me that flower : the herb I show'd thee once : 



* At a fair vestal throned by the west. — An allusion to Queen 
Elizabeth. See in the Rev. Mr. Halpin's remarks on this passage, 
published by the Shakspeare Society, a most ingenious speculation 
on the hidden meaning of it, as a bit of secret court history. 

f Love-in-idleness : The heart's-ease. 



154 SHAKSPEAKE. 

The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid, 
Will make or man or woman madly dote 
Upon the next live creature that it sees. 
Fetch me this herb : and be thou here again, 
Ere the leviathan can swim a league. 

Puck. I'll put a girdle round about the earth 
In forty minutes. 

[Exit Puck. 

Ober. Having once this juice, 

I'll watch Titania when she is asleep, 
And drop the liquor of it in her eyes : 
The next thing then she waking looks upon, 
(Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull, 
On meddling monkey, or on busy ape,) 
She shall pursue it with the soul of love, 
And ere I take this charm off from her sight, 
(As I can take it with another herb,) 
I'll make her render up her page to me. 

[Exit Oberon. 

Another part of the Wood. 

Enter Titania and her train. 

Tit. Come, now a roundel, and a fairy song : 
Then, for the third part of a minute, hence ; 
Some to Mil cankers in the musk-rose buds ; 
Some, war with reremice for their leathern wings, 
To make my small elves coats ; and some, keep back 
The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots, and wonders 
At our quaint spirits : Sing me now asleep ; 
Then to your offices, and let me rest. 

SONG. 

1st Fai. You spotted snakes, with double tongue, 
Thorny hedge-hogs, be not seen. 
Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong ; 
Come not near our fairy queen. 
Chorus. Philomel, with melody, 

Sing in our sweet lullaby : 
Lulla, lulla, lullaby : lulla, lulla, lullaby ; 



SHAKSPEAEE. 155 

Never harm, nor spell, nor charm, 
Come our lovely lady nigh ; 
So, good night — with lullaby. 
2nd Fai. Weaving spiders, come not here ; 

Hence, you long-legged spinners, hence ; 
Beetles black, approach not near ; 
Worm, nor snail, do no offence. 
Chorus. Philomel, with melody, &c. 
1st Fai. Hence, away ; now all is well : 
One, aloof, stand sentinel. 

[Exeunt Faikies. Titania sleeps. 

Enter Obeeon. 

Ober. What thou seest when thou dost wake, 

[Squeezes the flower on Titanta's eyelids. 
Do it for thy true love take ; 
Love and languish for his sake ; 
Be it ounce, or cat, or bear, 
Pard, or boar with bristled hair, 
In thy eye that shall appear 
When thou wak'st, it is thy dear ; 
Wake, when some vile thing is near. 

[Exit. 

Enter Bottom, singing ; Puck having clapt on him an ass's head. 
Song. 

Bot. The ousel-cock, so black of hue, 
With orange -tawny bill, 
The throstle with his note so true, 
The wren with little quill — 

Tit. What angel wakes me from my flowery bed 1 } [WaJces. 
I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again ; 
Mine ear is much enamour'd of thy note ; 
So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape ; 
And thy fair virtue's force perforce doth move me, 
On the first view, to say, to swear, I love thee. 
Bot. Methinks, mistress, you should have little reason for that; 
and yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together 



156 



SHAKSPEAKE. 



now-a-days. The more the pity that some honest neighbours will 
not make them friends. Nay, I can gleek * upon occasion. 
Tit. Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful. 
Bot. Not so, neither ; but if I had wit enough to get out of this 
wood, I have enough to serve mine own turn. 

Tit. Out of this wood do not desire to go ; 

Thou shalt remain here, whether thou wilt or no. 

I am a spirit of no common rate ; 

The summer still doth tend upon my state, 

And I do love thee ; therefore go with me ; 

I'll give thee fairies to attend on thee ; 

And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep, 

And sing, while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep : 

And I will purge thy mortal grossness so, 

That thou shalt like an airy spirit go. — 

Peas-blossom ! Cobweb ! Moth ! and Mustard-seed ! 

Enter four Fairies. 

1st Fai. Ready. 

2nd Fai. And I. 

3rd Fai. And I. 

4th Fai. Where shall we go ? 

Tit. Be kind and courteous to this gentleman; 
Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes : 
Feed him with apricots and dewberries, 
With purple grapes, green Jigs, and mulberries : 
The honey -bags steal from the humble-bees, 
And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs, 
And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes, 
To have my love to bed, and to arise : 
And pluck the wings from painted butterflies, 
To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes : 
Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies. 

1st. Fai. Hail, mortal ! 

2nd Fai. Hail ! 

3rd Fai. Hail ! 

4th Fai. Hail! 

* Gleek : Banter. 



SHAKSPEARE. 157 

Bot. I cry your worship's mercy, heartily.— I beseech your 
worship's name. 

Cob. Cobweb. 

Bot. I shall desire you of more acquaintance, good Master 
Cobweb. If I cut my finger I shall make bold with you. Your 
name, honest gentleman ? 

Peas. Peas-blossom. 

Bot. I pray you commend me to Mistress Squash, your mother, 
and to Master Peascod, your father. Good Master Peas-blossom, I 
shall desire you of more acquaintance too. Your name, I beseech 
you, sir ? 

Mus. Mustard-seed. 

Bot. Good Master Mustard-seed, I know your patience well. 
That same cowardly, giant-like ox-beef hath devoured many a gentleman 
of your house. I promise you your kindred hath made my eyes water 
ere now. I desire you more acquaintance, good Master Mus- 
tard-seed. 

Oberon enters unseen. 

Tit. Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed, 
"While I thy amiable cheeks do coy, 
And Stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head, 
And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy. 
Bot. Where's Peas-blossom ? 
Peas. Ready. 

Bot. Scratch my head, Peas-blossom. Where's Monsieur Cobweb ? 
Cob. Ready. 

Bot. Monsieur Cobweb, good monsieur, get your weapons in 
your hand, and kill me a red-hipped humble-bee on the top of a 
thistle ; and, good monsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret 
yourself too much in the action, monsieur; and, good monsieur, 
have a care the honey-bag break not ; I would be loth to have you 
overflown with a honey-bag, signior. — Where's Monsieur Mustard- 
seed? 

Must. Ready. 

Bot. Give me your neif * Monsieur Mustard-seed. Pray you, 
leave your courtesy, good monsieur. 
Must. What's your will ? 

* Neif; Fist. 



158 SHAKSPEARE. 

Bot. Nothing, good monsieur, but to help Cavalero Cobweb to 
scratch. I must to the barber's, monsieur ;' for methinJcs I am 
marvellous hairy about the face ; and I am such a tender ass, if my 
hair do but tickle me I must scratch. 

Tit. What, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love ? 
Bot. I have a reasonable good ear in music : let us have the tongs 
and the bones. 

Tit. Or say, sweet love, what thou desirest to eat. 
Bot. Truly a peck of provender. I could munch your good dry 
oats. Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle of hay. Good hay, 
sweet hay, hath no fellow. 

Tit. I have a venturous fairy, that shall seek the squirrel's hoard, 
and fetch thee new nuts. 

Bot. I had rather have a handful or two of dried peas : — but, I 
pray you, let none of your people stir me ; I have an exposition of 
sleep come upon me. 

Tit. Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms. 
Fairies, begone, and be all ways away. 
So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle 
Gently entwist ; — the female ivy so 
Enrings the barky fingers of the elm. 
Oh, how I love thee ! How I dote on thee ! 

[ They sleep. 

Oberon advances. Enter Puck. 

Ober. Welcome, good Robin. Seest thou this sweet sight ? 
Her dotage now I do begin to pity : 
For meeting her of late behind the wood, 
Seeking sweet savours for this hateful fool, 
I did upbraid her, and fall out with her : 
For she his hairy temples then had rounded 
With coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers ; 
And that same dew, which sometime on the buds 
Was wont to swell, like round and orient pearls, 
Stood now within the pretty flowrets' eyes, 
Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail. 
When I had, at my pleasure, taunted her, 
And she, in mild tones, begg'd my patience, 
I then did ask of her her changeling child ; 
Which straight she gave me, and her fairy sent 



SHAKSPEABE. 159 

To bear him to my bower in fairy land. 
And now I have the boy, I will undo 
This hateful imperfection of her eyes. 
And, gentle Puck, take this transformed scalp 
From off the head of this Athenian swain ; 
That he awaking when the others do, 
May all to Athens back again repair, 
And think no more of this night's accidents, 
But as the fierce vexation of a dream.* 
But first, I will release the fairy queen. 
Be as thou wert wont to be ; 

[Touching her eyes with an herb. 
See as thou wert wont to see ; 
Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower 
Hath such force and blessed power. 
Now, my Titania ; wake you, my sweet queen. 
Tit. My Oberon ! what visions have I seen ! 
Methought I was enamoured of an ass. 
Ober. There lies your love. 

Tit. How came these things to pass ? 

O, how mine eyes do loath his visage now ! 

Ober. Silence a while. Robin, take off this head, — 
Titania, music call ; and strike more dead 
Than common sleep, of all these five the sense. 
Tit. Music ! ho ! music ! such as charmeth sleep. 
Puck. Now, when thou wak'st, with thine own fool's eyes peep. 
Ober. Sound, music ! [Still music] Come, my queen, take 
hands with me, 
And rdck the ground whereon ihese sleepers be. 
Now thou and I are new in amity, 
And will, to-morrow midnight, solemnly 
Dance in Duke Theseus' house triumphantly, 
And bless it to all fair posterity : 
There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be 
"Wedded, with Theseus, all in jollity. 

Puck . Fairy king, attend and mark ; 
I do hear the morning lark. 

* But as the fierce vexation of a dream : This fine stray verse 
comes looking in among the rest like a stern face through flowers. 



160 



SHAKSPEARE. 

Ober. Then, my queen, in silence sad * 
Trip we after the night's shade. 
We the globe can compass soon, 
Swifter than the wandering moon. 

Tit. Come, my lord, and in our flight 
Tell me how it came, this night, 
That I sleeping here was found 
With these mortals on the ground. [Exeunt. 

[Horns sound within.] 



( 5 ) Come from the furthest steep of India. 
Shakspeare understood the charm of remoteness in 
poetry, as lie did everything else. Oberon has been 
dancing on the sunny steeps looking towards Cathay, 
where the 

Chineses drive 

Their cany waggons light. 



THE BRIDAL HOUSE BLESSED BY THE FAIRIES. 

Enter Puck. 

Puck. Now the hungry Hon roars, ( 6 ) 

And the wolf behowls the moon, 
While the heavy ploughman snores, 

All with weary task fordone. 
Now the wasted brands do glow, 

Whilst the scritch-owl, scritching loud, 

Puts the wretch, that lies in woe, 

In remembrance of a shroud. 

* Sad . Grave, serious (not melancholy). 



SHAKSPEAKE, 161 

Now it is the time of night 

That the graves, all gaping wide, 
Every one lets forth his sprite, 

In the churchway paths to glide ; 
And we fairies, that do run 

By the triple Hecate's team, 
From the presence of the sun, 
Following darkness like a dream, 
Now are frolic ; not a mouse 
Shall disturb this hallow'd house ; 
I am sent, with broom before, 
To sweep the dust behind the door. 

Enter Obekon and Titanta, with their train. 

Ober. Through this house give glimmering light, 
By the dead and drowsy fire : 
Every elf and fairy sprite, 
Hop as light as birds from brier ; 
And this ditty after me 
Sing and dance it trippingly. 

Tita. First rehearse this song by rote : 
To each word a warbling note, 
Hand in hand, with fairy grace, 
Will we sing and bless this place. 

Song and Dance. 

Ober. Now, until the break of day, 
Through this house eaclj. fairy stray, 
To the best bride-bed will we, 
Which by us shall blessed be ; 
And the issue there create 
Ever shall be fortunate. 
So shall all the couples three 
Ever true in loving be ; 
And the blots of Nature's hand 
Shall not in their issue stand ; 
Never mole, hare-lip, nor scar, 
Nor mark prodigious, such as are 
Despised in nativity, 
Shall upon their children be. 

11 



162 SHAKSPEAEE. 

With this field- dew consecrate, 
Every fairy take his gait ; 
And each several chamber bless 
Through this palace with sweet peace 
E'er shall it in safety rest, 
And the owner of it blest. 

Trip away ; 

Make no stay ; 
Meet me all by break of day. 



( 6 ) Noiv the hungry lion roars. 

Upon the songs of Puck and Oberon, Coleridge 
exclaims, " Very Anacreon in perfectness, proportion, and 
spotaneity ! So far it is Greek ; but then add, Oh ! what 
wealth, what wild ranging, and yet what compression and 
condensation of English fancy ! In truth, there is nothing 
in Anacreon more perfect than these thirty lines, or half 
so rich and imaginative. They form a speckless diamond." 
— Literary Remains, vol. ii. p. 114. 



LOVERS AND MUSIC. 

Lorenzo and Jessica, awaiting the return home of Portia and 
Nerissa, discourse of music, and then welcome with it the bride 
and her attendant. 

Lor. The moon shines bright. In such a night as this, (J) 
When the sweet wind did gently hiss the trees, 
And they did make no noise — in such a night 
Troilus, methinks, mounted the Trojan walls, 
And siglid his soul towards the Grecian tents, ( 8 ) 
Wliere Cressid lay that night. 



SHAKSPEARE. 163 



Jes. In such a night 

Did Thisbe fearfully o'ertrip the dew, 
And saw the lions shadow ere himself, ( 9 ) 
And ran dismay'd away. 

Lor. In such a night 

Stood Dido with a willow in her hand ( 10 ) 
Upon the wild sea-banks, and wav'd her love 
To come again to Carthage. 

Jes. ■ In such a night 

Medea gather'd the enchanted herbs (") 
That did renew old iEson. 

Lor. In such a night 

Did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew ; 
And with an unthrift love did run from Venice, 
As far as Belmont. 

Jes. And in such a night 

Did young Lorenzo swear he lov'd her well ; 
Stealing her soul with many vows of faith, 
And ne'er a true one. 

Lor. And in such a night 

Did pretty Jessica, like a little shrew, 
Slander her love, and he forgave it lier. 

Jes. I would out-night you, did nobody come ; 
But, hark, I hear the footing of a man. 



Enter Stephano. 

Lor. Who comes so fast in silence of the night ? 

Steph. A friend. 

Lor. A friend ! what friend ? your name, I pray you, friend ? 

Steph. Stephano is my name : and I bring word 
My mistress will, before the break of day, 
Be here at Belmont : she doth stray about 
By holy crosses, where she kneels and prays 
For happy wedlock hours. 

Lor. Who comes with her ? 

Steph. None but a holy hermit and her maid. 

Lor. Sweet soul, let's in, and there expect their coming. 
And yet no matter : — why should we go in ? 



164 SHAKSPEARE. 

My Mend Stephano, signify, I pray yon, 
Within the honse, your mistress is at hand ; 
And bring your music forth into the air. — 

[Exit Stephano. 
How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this tank ! 
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music 
Creep into our ears ; soft stillness, and the night, 
Become the touches of sweet harmony. 
Sit, Jessica : Look, how the floor of heaven 
Is thick inlaid withpatines * of bright gold ; 
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st, ( 12 j 
But in his motion like an angel sings, 
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims : 
Such harmony is in immortal souls; 
But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay 
Doth grossly close us in, we cannot hear it. 

Enter Musicians. 

Come, ho ! and wake Diana with a hymn ; 

With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear, 

And draw her home with music. [Music. 

Jes. I am never merry when I hear sweet music. 

Lor. The reason is, your spirits are attentive : 
For do but note a wild and wanton herd, 
A race of youthful and unhandled colts, 
Fetching mad bounds,— bellowing and neighing loud, 
Which is the hot condition of then' blood ; 
If they but hear, perchance, a trumpet sound, 
Or any air of music touch their ears, 
You shall perceive them make a mutual stand — 
Their savage eyes turned to a modest gaze 
By the sweet power of music. Therefore the poet 
Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods, 



* Patines (Patine, Patene, Ital.) have been generally understood 
to mean plates of gold or silver used in the Catholic service. A new 
and interesting commentator, however (the Rev. Mr. Hunter), is of 
opinion that the proper word is patterns. 



SHAKSPEARE. 165 

Since nought so stocldsh, hard, and full of rage, 

But music for the time doth change his nature. 

The man tliat hath no music in himself, 

Nor is not movd with concord of sweet sounds, 

Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils ; 

The motions of his spirit are dull as night, 

And his affections dark as Erebus: 

Let no such man be trusted. — Mark the music. 

Enter Portia and Nerissa, at a distance. 

Por. That light we see is burning in my hall ; 
How far that little candle throws its beams 1 
So shines a good deed in a naughty world. 

Ner. When the moon shone, we did not see the candle. 

Por. So doth the greater glory dim the less ; 
A substitute shines brightly as a king, 
Until a king be by ; and then his state 
Empties itself, as doth an inland brook 
Into the main of waters. Music ! hark ! 

Ner. It is your music, madam, of the house, 

Por. Nothing is good, I see, without respect ; 
Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day. 

Ner. Silence bestows that virtue on it, madam. 

Por. The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark, 
"When neither is attended ; and, I think, 
The nightingale, if she should sing by day, 
"When every goose is cackling, would *be thought 
No better a musician than the wren. 
How many things by season season'd are 
To their right praise, and true perfection ! 
Peace, hoa! the moon sleeps with Endijmion, 
And would not be awak'd ! [Music ceasee. 

Lor. That is the voice, 

Or I am much deceiv'd, of Portia. 

Por. He knows me, as the blind man knows the cuckoo 
By the bad voice. 

Lor. Dear lady, welcome home. ( 13 ; 



166 SHAKSPEARE. 

( 7 ) In such a night as this, &c. 

All the stories here alluded to, — Troilus and Cressida, 
Pyramus and Thisbe, Dido and iEneas, Jason and Medea, 
are in Chaucer's Legends of Good Women. It is pleasant 
to see our great poet so full of his predecessor. He cannot 
help, however, inventing particulars not to be found in his 
original. 

( 8 j And sigtid his soul, &o. 

" The day go'th fast, and after that came eve, 
And yet came not Troilus to Grescid : 
He looketh forth by hedge, by tree, by greve (grove), 
And far his head over the wall he laid" 

— Clarke's Chaucer, vol. ii. p. 151. 

( 9 ) And saw the lions shadow. 

Thisbe in Chaucer does not see the shadow before she 

sees the beast (a fine idea !) ; nor does she in Ovid. In 

both poets, it is a lioness seen by moonlight. 

" With bloody mouth, of strangling of a beast." 

Csede lesena bourn spuniantes oblita rictus. 

—Metam. lib. iv. v. 97. 

( 10 ) Stood Dido with a willow in her hand. 
The willow, a symbol of being forsaken, is not in 
Chaucer. It looks as if Shakspeare had seen it in a 
picture, where it would be more necessary than in a 
poem. 

( u ) Medea gather 1 d the enchanted herbs. 
Shakspeare has here gone from Chaucer to Gower. 
Warton, in his Observations on the Faerie Queene, vol. i. 



SHAKSPEARE. 167 

p. 361, edit. 1807, has noticed a passage in Gower's story, 
full of imagination. The poet is speaking of Medea going 
out upon the business noticed by Shakspeare : 

Thus it fell upon a night, 

When there was nought but starrie light, 

She was vanish'd right as she list, 

That no wight but herself wist, 

And that was at midnight tide. — 

The world was still on every side. 

With open head and foot all bare ; 

Her hair too spread, she gan to fare ; 

Upon her clothes girt she was, 

And speechless, upon the grass, 

She glode* forth, as an adder doth. 

( 12 ) There s not the smallest orb. 

The "warbler of wood-notes wild " has here manifestly 
joined with Plato and other learned spirits to suggest to 
Milton his own account of the Music of the Spheres, 
which every reader of taste, I think, must agree with 
Mr. Knight in thinking " less perfect in sentiment and 
harmony." — Pictorial Shakspeare, vol. ii. p. 448. The 
best thing in it is what is observed by Warton : that the 
listening to the spheres is the recreation of the Genius of 
the Wood (the speaker) after his day's duty, " when the 
world is locked up in sleep and silence." 

Then listen I 
To the celestial Sirens' harmony, 
That sit upon the nine infolded spheres, 
And sing to those that hold the vital shears, 



* Glode, is glided. If Chaucer's contemporary had written often 
thus, his name would have been as famous. 



168 SHAKSPEARE. 

And turn the adamantine spindle round, 
On which the fates of gods and men is wound. 
Such sweet compulsion doth in music lie 
To lull the daughters of Necessity, 
And keep unsteady Nature in her law, 
And the low world in measur'd motion draw 
After the heavenly tune, which none can hear 
Of human mould, with gross unpurged ear. 

A reticles, v. 62. 

The best account I remember to have read of the 
Music of the Spheres is in the History of Music by 
Hawkins. 

( I3 ) Dear lady, welcome home. 
Never was a sweeter or more fitting and bridal elegance 
than in the whole of this scene, in which gladness and 
seriousness prettily struggle, each alternately yielding pre- 
dominance to the other. The lovers are at once in heaven 
and earth. The new bride is " drawn home " with the 
soul of love in the shape of music ; and to keep her giddy 
spirits down, she preached that little womanly sermon 
upon a good deed shining in a "naughty world." The 
whole play is, in one sense of the word, the most pic- 
turesque in feeling of all Shakspeare's. The sharp and 
malignant beard of the Jew (himself not unreconciled to 
us by the affections) comes harmlessly against the soft- 
cheek of love. 



SHAKSPEAEE. 169 



ANTONY AND THE CLOUDS. 

Ant. Eros, thou yet beliold'st me ? 

Eros. Ay, noble lord. 

Ant. Sometimes we see a cloud that's dragonish : 

A vapour sometime like a bear, or lion, 

A tower'd citadel, a pendent rock, 

A forked mountain, or blue promontory, 

With trees upon't that nod unto the world, 

And mock our eyes with air ; thou hast seen these signs; 

They are black Vesper's pageants. 

Eros. Ay, my lord. 

Ant. That which is now a horse, even with a thought 
The rack dislimns ; and makes it indistinct, 
As water is in water. 

Eros. It does, my lord. 

Ant. My good knave, Eros, now thy captain is 
Even such a body : — here I am, — Antony — 
Yet cannot hold this visible shape. 



YOUNG WARRIORS. 

Hotspur. My cousin Vernon ! welcome, by my soul ! , 

Sir Richard Vernon. Pray, God, my news be worth a welcome, 
lord. 
The Earl of Westmoreland, seven thousand strong, 
Is marching hitherwards ; with him, Prince John. 

Rot. No harm : What more ? 

Ver. And further, I have learn'd- 
The king himself in person is set forth, 
Or hitherwards intended speedily, 
With strong and mighty preparation. 

Hot. He shall be welcome too. Where is his son, 
The nimble-footed mad-cap Prince of Wales, 
And his comrades, that dajf'd the world aside, 
And bid it pass ? 



170 



SHAKSPEARE. 



Ver. All furnish' d, all in arms, 
All plum d like estridges that wing the wind : 
Bated like eagles having lately bath'd ; 
Glittering in golden coats, like images ; 
As full of spirit as the month of May 
And gorgeous as the sun at Midsummer ; 
Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls. 
I saw young Harry, — with his beaver on, 
His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm'd, — 
Rise from the ground like feather d Mercury, 
And vaulted with such ease into his seat, 
As if an angel dropp'd down from the clouds, 
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus, 
And witch the world with noble horsemanship. 

Hot. No more, no more ; worse than the sun in March, 
This praise doth nourish agues. Let them come; 
They come like sacrifices in their trim, 
And to the fire-eyed maid of smoky war, 
All hot, and bleeding, will we offer them; 
The mailed Mars shall on his altar sit, 
Up to the ears in blood. I am on fire, 
To hear this rich reprisal is so nigh, 
And yet not ours : — Come, let me take my horse, 
Who is to bear me, like a thunder-bolt, 
Against the bosom of the Prince of Wales ; 
Harry to Harry shall, hot (query not ?) horse to horse, ( 14 ) 
Meet, and ne'er part, till one drop down a corse. 



( l4 ) Harry to Harry shall, hot horse to horse. 
I cannot help thinking that the word hot in this line 
ought to he not. "Hot horse to horse" is not a very 
ohvious mode of speech, and it is too obvious an image. 
The horses undoubtedly would be hot enough. But does 
not Hotspur mean to say that the usual shock of horses 
will not be sufficient for the extremity of his encounter 



SHAKSPEARE. 171 

with the Prince of Wales ? — their own bodies are to be 
dashed together, and not merely the horses : 

Harry to Harry shall, not horse to horse : 

so closely does he intend that their combat shall hug. 



IMOGEN IN BED. 
(from cymbeline.) 

(Iachimo, dared by Imogens husband to make trial of her fidelity, 
hides in her chamber in order to bring away pretended proofs 
against it.) 

Imo. {reading in bed.) Who's there ? my woman Helen ? 

Lady. Please you, madam. 

Imo. What hour is it ? 

Lady. Almost midnight, madam. 

Imo. I have read three hours then : mine eyes are weak 
Fold down the leaf where I have left : — to bed : 
Take not away the taper ; leave it bmming ; 
And if thou canst awake by four o' the clock, 
I prithee, call me. Sleep hath seized me wholly. 

► [Exit Lady. 

To your protection I commend me, gods ! 
From fairies, and the tempters of the night, 
Guard me, I beseech ye ! 

[Sleeps. Iachimo, from the trunk. 

lach. The crickets sing, and man's o'er-labour'd sense 
Repairs itself by rest : our Tarquin thus 
Did softly press the rushes, ere he waken'd 
The chastity he wounded. — Cytherea, 
How bravely thou becomst thy bed ! fresh lily 1 
And whiter than the sheets ! that I might touch ! 
But kiss ; one kiss ! — Rubies unparagon'd, 
How dearly they do't — 'Tis her breathing that 



172 SHAKSPEARE. 

Perfumes the chamber thus: — the flame o the taper 

Bows towards her ; and would under -peep her lids, 

To see the enclosed lights, now canopied 

Under those windows, white and azure, lacd 

With blue of heaven's own tint. But my design ! 

To note the chamber. — I will write all down; 

Such and such pictures : — there the window : such 

The adornment of her bed : — the arras, figures, 

Why, such and such : — And the contents o' the story, — 

Ah, but some natural notes about her body 

Above ten thousand meaner moveables 

Would testify, to enrich mine inventory. 

O sleep, thou ape of Death, lie dull upon her ! 

And be her sense but as a monument, 

Thus in a chapel lying ! — Come off, come off : 

[Takes off her bracelet. 
As slippery as the Gordian knot was hard ! 
'Tis mine, and this will witness outwardly, 
As strongly as the conscience does within, 
To the madding of her lord. On her left breast 
A mole cinque- spotted, like the crimson drops 
T the bottom of a cowslip. Here's a voucher, 
Stronger than ever law could make : this secret 
Will force him think I have pick'd the lock, and ta'en 
The treasure of her honour. No more. — To what end ? 
'Why should I write this down that's riveted, 
Screw'd, to my memory ? She hath been reading late 
The tale of Tereus : here the leaf's turn'd down, 
Where Philomel gave up. — I have enough : — 
To the trunk again, and shut the spring of it. 
Swift, swift, you dragons of the night, that dawning 
May bare the raven's eye ! I lodge in fear ; 
Though this a heavenly angel, hell is here. 

[Clock strikes. 
One, two, three, — Time, time ! 

[Goes into the trunk. The scene closes. 



BEN J0NS0N. 

BORN, 1574, — DIED, 1637. 



If Ben Jonson had not tried to do half what he did, he 
would have had a greater fame. His will and ambition 
hurt him, as they always hurt genius when set in front of 
it. Lasting reputation of power is only to be obtained by 
power itself; and this, in poetry, is the result not so 
much, if at all, of the love of the power, as of the power 
of love, — the love of truth and beauty, — great and potent 
things they, — not the love of self, which is generally a 
very little thing. The " supposed rugged old bard," not- 
withstanding his huffing and arrogance, had elegance, feel- 
ing, imagination, great fancy ; but by straining to make 
them all greater than they were, bringing in the ancients 
to help him, and aiming to include the lowest farce (per- 
haps by way of outdoing the universality of Shakspeare), 
he became as gross in his pretensions as drink had made 
him in person. His jealous irritability and assumption 
tired out the gentlest and most generous of his contempo- 
raries — men who otherwise really liked him (and he them), 
—Decker for one; and he has ended in appearing to 



174 BEN JONSON. 

posterity rather the usurper than the owner of a true 
renown. He made such a fuss with his learning, that he 
is now suspected to have had nothing else. Hazlitt him- 
self cannot give him credit for comic genius, so grave and 
all-in-all does his pedantry appear to that critic,— an erro- 
neous judgment, as it seems to me, — who cannot help 
thinking, that what altogether made Ben what he was pro- 
jected his ultra-jovial person rather towards comedy than 
tragedy • and as a proof of this, his tragedies are all 
borrowed, but his comedies his own. Twelfth Night and 
other plays of Shakspeare preceded and surpassed him in 
his boasted " humour ; " but his Alchemist, and especially 
his Volpone, seem to me at the head of all severer 
English comedy. The latter is a masterpiece of plot and 
treatment. Ben's fancy, a power tending also rather to 
the comic than tragic, was in far greater measure than his 
imagination ; and their strongest united efforts, as in the 
Witches' Meeting, and the luxurious anticipations of Sir 
Epicure Mammon, produce a smiling as well as a serious 
admiration. The three happiest of all his short effusions 
(two of which are in this volume) are the Epitaph on Lady 
Pembroke, the address to Cynthia (both of which are 
serious indeed, but not tragic), and the Catch of the Satyrs, 
which is unique for its wild and melodious mixture of the 
comic and the poetic. His huge farces, to be sure (such 
as Bartholomew Fair), are execrable. They seem to talk 
for talking sake, like drunkards. And though his famous 
verses, beginning, " Still to be neat, still to be drest," are 
elegantly worded, I never could admire them. There is a 
coarseness implied in their very refinement. 



BEN J0NS0N. 175 

After all, perhaps it is idle to wish a writer had been 
otherwise than he was, especially if he is an original in his 
way, and worthy of admiration. His faults he may have 
been unable to mend, and they may not have been without 
their use, even to his merits. If Ben had not been Ben, 
Sir Epicure Mammon might not have talked in so high a 
tone. "We should have missed, perhaps, something of the 
excess and altitude of his expectations — of his 
Gums of Paradise and eastern air. 

Let it not be omitted, that Milton went to the masques 
and odes of Ben Jonson for some of the elegancies even 
of his dignified muse. See Warton's edition of his Minor 
Poems, passim. Our extracts shall commence with one of 
these odes, combining classic elegance with a tone of 
modern feeling, and a music like a serenade. 



TO CYNTHIA;— THE MOON. 

Queen and Huntress, chaste and fair, 

Now the sun is laid asleep, 
Seated in thy silver chair, 

State in wonted manner keep, 
Hesperus entreats thy light, 
Goddess, excellently bright. 

Earth, let not thy envious shade 

Dare itself to interpose ; 
Cynthia's shining orb was made 
Heav'n to clear, when day did close. 
Bless us then with wished sight, 
Goddess, excellently bright. 



176 BEN JONSON. 

Lay thy bow of pearl apart, 

And thy crystal shining quiver ; 

Give unto the flying hart 

Space to breathe, how sliort soever : 
Thou, that mak'st a day of night, 
1 Goddess, excellently bright. 



THE LOVE-MAKING OF LUXURY. 

Volpone makes love to Celia 

Volp. See, behold, 

What thou art queen of; not in expectation, 
As I feed others, but possess'd and crown'd. 
See here, a rope of pearl ; and each, more orient 
Than that the brave ^Egyptian queen caroused : 
Dissolve and drink them. See, a carbuncle, 
May put out both the eyes of our St. Mark ; 
A diamond would have bought Lolia Paulina, 
When she came in like star-light, hid with jewels, 
That were the spoils of provinces ; take these 
And wear and lose them ; yet remains an ear-ring 
To purchase them again, and this whole state. 
A gem but worth a private patrimony, 
Is nothing : we will eat such at a meal. 
The heads of parrots, tongues of nightingales, 
The brains of peacocks, and of estriches, 
Shall be our food : and, could we get the phanix, 
Though nature lost her hind, she were our dish. 

Cel. Good sir, these things might move a mind affected 
With such delights ; but I, whose innocence 
Is all I can think wealthy, or worth th' enjoying, 
And which, once lost, I have nought to lose beyond it, 
Cannot be taken with these sensual baits : 
If you have conscience 

Volp. 'Tis the beggar's virtue: 

If thou had wisdom, hear me, Celia. 



BEN JONSON. 177 

Thy baths shall be the juice of July flowers, 
Spirit of roses and of violets, 
The milk of unicorns, and panthers' breath 
Gather'd in bags, and mixt with Cretan wines. 
Our drink shall be prepared gold and amber ; 
Which we will take until my roof whirl round 
With the vertigo : and my dwarf' shall dance, 
My eunuch sing, my fool make up the antic ; 
Whilst we, in changed shapes, act Ovid's tales : 
Thou, like Europa now, and I like Jove ; 
Then I like Mars, and thou like Erycine ; 
So of the rest, till we have quite run through 
And wearied all the fables of the gods. 



TOWERING SENSUALITY. 

Sir Epicure Mammon, expecting to obtain the Philosopher's Stone, 
riots in the anticipation of enjoyment. 

Enter Mammon and Sukly. 

Mam. Come on, sir. Now, you set your foot on shore 
In Novo Orbe : here's the rich Peru : 
And there within, sir, are the golden mines, 
Great Solomon's Ophir ! he was sailing to 't 
Three years ; but we have reached it in ten months. 
This is the day wherein, to all my friends, 
I will pronounce the happy words, Be rich. — 

* * * * 

Where is my Subtle there ? Within ! 

Enter Face. 

How now ? 
Do we succeed ? Is our day come ? and holds it ? 

Face. The evening will set red upon you, sir ; 
You have colour for it, crimson : the red ferment 
Has done his office : three hours hence prepare you 
To see projection. 

12 



178 BEN JONSON. 

Mam. Pertinax, my Surly, 
Again I say to thee, aloud, Be mcli. 
This day thou shalt have ingots ; and to-morrow 
Give lords the affront. — Is it, my Zephyrus, right ? — 

* * * * 
Thou'rt sure thou saw'st it blood ? 

Face. Both blood and spirit, sir. 
Mam. I will have all my beds blown up, not stuff' J : 
Down is too hard. 

* * * * 

My mists 
I'll have of perfume, vapoured 'bout the room 
To lose ourselves in ; and my baths, like pits, 
To fall into : from whence we will come forth 
And roll us dry in gossamer and roses. 

Is it arriv'd at ruby ? 

* # * * 

And my flatterers 

Shall be the pure and gravest of divines. — 

* * * * 

And they shall fan me with ten estrich tails 

Apiece, made in a plume to gather wind. 

We will be brave, Puffe, now we have the med'cine. 

My meat shall all come in in Indian shells, 

Dishes of agate, set in gold, and studded 

With emeralds, sapphires, hyacinths, and rubies. 

The tongues of carps, dormice, and camels' heels, 

Boil'd in the spirit of sol and dissolv d pearl, 

Apicius' diet 'gainst the epilepsy. 

And I will eat these broths with spoons of amber, 

Headed with diamond and carbuncle. 

My foot-boy shall eat pheasants, calver'd salmons, 

Knots, godwits, lampreys : I myself will have 

The beards of barbels serv'd instead of salads ; 

Oil'd mushrooms ; and the swelling, unctuous paps 

Of a fat pregnant sow, newly cut off, 

Drest with an exquisite and poignant sauce, 

For which Til say unto my cook, " There's gold ; 

Go forth, and be a knight." 

Face. Sir, I'll go look 

A little, how it heightens. [Exit Face. 



BEN JONSON. 179 

Mam. Do. — My shirts 

I'll have of taffeta-sarsnet, soft and light 
As cobwebs ; and for all my other raiment, 
It shall be such as might provoke the Persian, 
Were he to teach the world riot anew : 
My gloves of fishes and birds' skins, perfum'd 
With gums of paradise and eastern air. 

Sur. And do yon think to have the stone with this ? 

Mam. No ; I do think t' have all this with the stone ! 

Sur. Why, I have heard he must be homo frugi, 
A pious, holy, and religious man, 
One free from mortal sin, a very virgin. 

Mam. That makes it, sir ; he is so ; but I buy it. 



THE WITCH. 

From the Pastoral Fragment, entitled " The Sad Shepherd." 

Aiken. Know ye the witch's dell ? 

ScathlocTc. No more than I do know the walks of hell. 

Aiken. Within a gloomy dimble she doth dwell, 
Down in a pit o'ergrown with brakes and briers, 
Close by the ruins of a shaken abbey, 
Torn with an earthquake down unto the ground, — 
'Mongst graves and grots, near an old charnel-house, 
Where you shall find her sitting in her form, 
As fearful and melancholic as that 
She is about ; with caterpillars' kells, 
And knotty cobwebs, rounded in with spells. 
Then she steals forth to relief in the fogs, 
And rotten mists, upon the fens and bogs, 
Down to the drowned lands of Lincolnshire, 
To make ewes cast their lambs, swine eat their farrow, 
And housewives' tun not work, nor the milk churn ! 
Writhe children's ivrists, and suck their breath in sleep, 
Get vials of their blood ! and where the sea 



180 BEN JONSON. 

Casts up Ms slimy ooze, search, for a weed 
To open locks with, and to rivet charms, 
Planted about her in the wicked feat 
Of all her mischiefs ; which are manifold. 

John. I wonder such, a story could be told 
Of her dire deeds. 

George. I thought a witch's banks 
Had inclosed nothing but the merry pranks 
Of some old woman. 

Scarlet. Yes, her malice more. 

Sooth. As it would quickly appear had we the store 
Of Ms collects. 

George. Ay, this good learned man 

Can speak her right. 

Soar. He knows her shifts and haunts 

Aiken. And all her wiles and turns. The venom'd plants 
Wherewith she kills ! where the sad mandrake grows, 
Whose groans are deathful; and dead-numbing night- 
shade, 
The stupefying hemlock, adder's tongue, 
And martagan : the shrieks of luckless owls 
We hear, and croaking night-crows in the air ! 
Green-bellied snakes, blue fire-drakes in the sky, 
And giddy flitter-mice with leather wings ! 
The scaly beetles, with their habergeons, 
That make a humming murmur as they fly ! 
There in the stocks of trees white fairies dwell, 
And span-long elves that dance about a pool, 
With each a little changeling in their arms ! 
The airy spirits play with falling stars, 
And mount the spheres of fire to kiss the moon ! 
While she sits reading by the glow-worm's light, 
Or rotten wood, o'er which the worm hath crept, 
The baneful schedule of her nocent charms. 



BEN JONSON. 181 



A MEETING OF WITCHES, 

FOR THE PURPOSE OF DOING A MISCHIEF TO A JOYFUL HOUSE, AND 
BRINGING AN EVIL SPIRIT INTO BIRTH IN THE MIDST OF IT. 

From the Masque of Queens. 

Charm. The owl is abroad, the hat and the toad, 
And so is the cat-a-mountain ; 
The ant and the mole both sit in a hole, 

And the frog peeps out of the fountain : 
The dogs they do bay and the timbrels play, 

The spindle is now a-turning ; 
The moon it is red and the stars are fled, 
But all the shy is a-ouming. 
* * * * 

1st Hag. I have been all clay looldng after 
A raven feeding upon a quarter ; 
And soon as she turn'd her beak to the south, 
I snatch'd this morsel out of her mouth. 

2nd Hag. I have been gathering wolves' hairs, 

The mad dog's foam and the adder's ears ! 
The spurgmg of a dead man's eyes, 
And all since the evening star did rise. 

SrdHag. I, last night, lay all alone 

On the ground to hear the mandralte groan ; 
And pluck'd him up, though he grew full low, 
And as I had done, the cock did crow. 

It h Hag. And I have been choosing out this skull 
From charnel-houses that were full ; 
From private grots and public pits ; 
And frighted a sexton out of his ivits. 

Uh Hag. Under a cradle I did creep, 

By day ; and when the child was asleep 
At night, I suck'd the breath; and rose, 
And pluck'd the nodding nurse by the nose. 



182 BEN JONSON. 

6th Hag. I had a dagger : what did I with that ? 
KilVd an infant to have his fat. 

* * * * 

I scratch'd out the eyes of the owl before, 

I tore the bat's wing ; what would you have more ! 

Dame. Yes, I have brought to help our vows 
Horned poppy, cypress-boughs, 
The fig-tree wild that grows on tombs, 
And juice that from the larch-tree comes, 
The basilisk's blood and the viper's skin ; 
And now our orgies let us begin. 

You fiends and fairies, if yet any be 

Worse than ourselves, you that have quak'd to see 

These knots untied (she unties them) 

* * * * 
Exhale earth's rottenest vapours, 

And strike a blindness through these blazing tapers. 

* * * ♦ 

Charm. Deep, deep we lay thee to sleep ; 

We leave thee drink by, if thou chance to be dry ; 
Both milk and blood, the dew and the flood ; 
We breathe in thy bed, at the foot and the head ; 
And when thou dost wake, Dame Earth shall quake 
Such a birth to make, as is the Blue Drake. 

* * * * 

Dame. Stay ! all our charms do nothing win 
Upon the night ; our labour dies, 
Our magic feature will not rise, 
Nor yet the storm ! We must repeat 
More direful voices far, and beat 
The ground with vipers, till it sweat. 

* * * * 

Charm. Blacker go in, and blacker come out : 

At thy going down, we give thee a shout. 

Hoo! 
At thy rising again thou shalt have two ; 
And if thou dost what we'd have thee do, 
Thou shalt have three, thou shalt have four. 
Hoo ! har ! har ! hoo ! 



BEN JONSON. 183 

A cloud of pitch, a spur and a switch, 
To haste him away, and a whirlwind play, 
Before and after, with thunder for laughter 
And storms of joy, of the roaring boy, 
His head of a drake, his tail of a snake. 

(A loud and beautiful music is heard, and the Witches vanish.) 



A CATCH OF SATYRS. 

Silenus bids his Satyrs awaken a couple of Sylvans, who have fallen 
ivhile they should have kept watch. 



Buz, quoth the blue fly, 

Hum, quoth the bee ; 
Biiz and hum they cry, 

And so do we, 
In his ear, in his nose, 

Thus, do you see ? 
He ate the dormouse ; 

Else it was he. 

C "It is impossible that anything could better express 
than this, either the wild and practical joking of the satyrs, 
or the action of the thing described, or the quaintness and 
fitness of the images, or the 'melody and even the harmony, 
the intercourse, of the musical words, one with another. 
None but a boon companion with a very musical ear could 
have written it. It was not for nothing that Ben lived 
in the time of the fine old English composers, Bull and 
Ford, or partook his canary with his • lov'd Alphonso,' as 
he calls him, the Signor Ferrabosco." — A Jar of Honey 
from Mount Hybla, in Ainsworth's Magazine, No. xxx. 
p. 86. 



BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 

BEAUMONT, BORN 1586 — DIED 1615. 
FLETCHER, BORN 1576 — DIED 1625. 



Poetry of the highest order and of the loveliest character 
ahounds in Beaumont and Fletcher, but so mixed up with 
inconsistent, and too often, alas ! revolting matter, that, 
apart from passages which do not enter into the plan of this 
book, I had no alternative but either to confine the 
extracts to the small number which ensue, or to bring 
together a heap of the smallest quotations, — two or three 
lines at a time. I thought to have got a good deal more 
out of the Faithful Shepherdess, which I had not read for 
many years ; but on renewing my acquaintance with it, I 
found that the same unaccountable fascination with the evil 
times which had spoilt these two fine poets in their 
other plays, had followed its author, beyond what I had 
supposed, even into the regions of Arcadia. 

Mr. Hazlitt, who loved sometimes to relieve his mis- 
trust by a fit of pastoral worship, pronounces the Faithful 
Shepherdess to be " a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets, 
where no crude surfeit reigns." I wish I could think so. 



BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 185 

There are both hot and cold dishes in it, which I would 
quit at any time to go and dine with the honest lovers of 
Allan Kamsay, whose Gentle Shepherd, though of another 
and far inferior class of poetry, I take upon the whole to 
be the completest pastoral drama that ever was written. 

It is a pity that Beaumont and Fletcher had not been 
born earlier, and in the neighbourhood of Shakspeare, and 
become his playmates. The wholesome company of the 
juvenile yeoman (like a greater Sandford) might have 
rectified the refined spirits of the young gentlemen, and 
saved their Hippocrene from becoming ditch-water. Even 
as it is, they seem different men when writing in their own 
persons, and following the taste of the town. Compare, 
for example, Beaumont's exquisite verses on Melancholy 
(here printed) with any one of their plays ; or Fletcher's 
lines entitled An Honest Man's Fortune with the play of 
the same name, to which it is appended. The difference 
is so great, and indeed is discernible to such an equal 
degree in the poetry which startles you in the plays them- 
selves (as if two different souls were writing one passage), 
that it appears unaccountable, except on some principle 
anterior to their town life, and to education itself. Little 
is known of either of their families, except that there were 
numerous poets in both ; but Fletcher's father was that 
Dean of Peterborough (afterwards Bishop of London) who 
behaved with such unfeeling impertinence to the Queen of 
Scots in her last moments, and who is said (as became 
such a man) to have died of chagrin because Elizabeth 
was angry at his marrying a second time. Was poetry 
such a " drug " with " both their houses " that the friends 



186 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 

lost their respect for it ? or was Fletcher's mother some 
angel of a woman — some sequestered Miranda of the day — 
with whose spirit the "earth" of the Dean her husband 
but ill accorded ? 

Every devout lover of poetry must have experienced the 
wish of Coleridge, that Beaumont and Fletcher had written 
"poems instead of tragedies." Imagine as voluminous a 
set of the one as they have given us of the other ? It 
would hare been to sequestered real life what Spenser was 
to the land of Faery, — a retreat beyond all groves and 
gardens, a region of medicinal sweets of thought and feel- 
ing. Nor would plenty of fable have been wanting. What 
a loss ! And this, — their birthright with posterity — these 
extraordinary men sold for the mess 'of the loathsome 
pottage of the praise and profligacy of the court of 
James I. 

But let us blush to find fault with them, even for such 
a descent from their height, while listening to their diviner 
moods. 



MELANCHOLY. 

BY BEAUMONT. 

Hence, all you vain delights, 
As short as are the nights 

Wherein you spend your folly ; 
There's nought in this life sweet, 
Were men but wise to see 't, 

But only Melancholy ; 
O sweetest Melancholy ! 



BEAUMONT AND FLETCHEE. 187 

Welcome, folded arms and fixed eyes ; 
A sigh that, piercing, mortifies ; 
A look that 's fasten 'd to the ground; 
A tongue chain d up icithout a sound. 

Fountain-heads and pathless groves, 

Places which pale passion loves ; (*) 

Moonlight walks, when all the fowls 

Are warmly hous'd save bats and owls ; 

A midnight bell, a parting groan, 

These are the sounds we feed upon : 

Then stretch our hones in a still gloomy valley : 

Nothing so dainty sweet as lovely Melancholy. ( 2 ) 



( l ) Places which pale passion loves. 
Beaumont, while writing this verse, perhaps the finest 
in the poem, probably had in his memory that of Marlowe, 
in his description of Tamburlaine : 

Pale of complexion, wrought in him with passion. 

(*) Lovely Melancholy. 

Tradition has given these verses to Beaumont, though 
they appeared for the first time in a play of Fletcher's after 
the death of his friend. »In all probability Beaumont 
had partly sketched the play, and left the verses to be 
inserted. 

I cannot help thinking that a couplet has been lost 
after the words "bats and owls." It is true the four 
verses ending with those words might be made to belong 
to the preceding four, as among the things " welcomed ; " 
but the junction would be forced, and the modulation 
injured. They may remain, too, where they are, as com- 
bining to suggest the " sounds " which the melancholy man 



188 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHEE. 

feeds upon: " fountain-heads " being audible, "groves" 
whispering, and the " moonlight walks " being attended 
by the hooting " owl." They also modulate beautifully in 
this case. Yet these intimations themselves appear a 
little forced ; whereas, supposing a couplet to be supplied, 
there would be a distinct reference to melancholy sights, as 
well as sounds. 

The conclusion is divine. Indeed the whole poem, as 
Hazlitt says, is " the perfection of this kind of writing." 
Orpheus might have hung it, like a pearl, in the ear of 
Proserpina. It has naturally been thought to have 
suggested the Penseroso to Milton, and is more than 
worthy to have done so ; for fine as that is, it is still finer. 
It is the concentration of a hundred melancholies. Sir 
Walter Scott, in one of his biographical works, hardly with 
the accustomed gallantry and good-nature of the great 
novelist, contrasted it with the " melo- dramatic " abstrac- 
tions of Mrs. Eadclyffe (then living). He might surely, 
with more justice, have opposed it to the diffuseness and 
conventional phraseology of " novels in verse." 



A SATYR. PRESENTS A BASKET OF FRUIT TO THE 
FAITHFUL SHEPHERDESS. 

BY FLETCHER. 

Here be grapes whose lusty blood 

Is the learned poet's good ; 

Sweeter yet did never crown 

The head of Bacchus; nuts more brown 

Than the squirrel's teeth that crack them ; 

Deign, fairest fair ! to take them. 



BEAUMONT AND FLETCHEB. 189 

For these black- eyed Dryope 

Hath, oftentimes conmianded ine 

With my clasped knee to climb : 

See how well the lusty tune 

Hath decle'd their rising cheeks in red, 

Such as on your lips is spread. 

Here be berries for a queen, 

Some be red — some be green; ( 3 ) 

These are of that luscious meat 

The great god Pan himself doth eat ! 

All these, and what the woods can yield, 

The hanging mountain or the field, 

I freely offer ; and ere long 

Will bring you more, more sweet and strong ; 

Till when, humbly leave I take, 

Lest the great Pan do awake, 

That sleeping lies in a deep glade, 

Under a broad beech's shade: ( 4 ) 

I must go, I must run, 

Swifter than the fiery sun. 



( 3 ) Some be red — some be green. 

This verse calls to mind a beautiful one of Chaucer, in 
his description of a grove in spring : — 

In which were oakes great, straight as a line, 
Under the which the grass, so fresh of hue, 
Was newly sprung, and an eight foot of nine 
Ev-e-ry tree well from his fellow grew, 
With branches broad, laden with leaves new, 
That sprangen out against the sunny sheen, 
Some very red, and some a glad light green. 

— The Flower and the Leaf. 

Coleridge was fond of repeating it. 



190 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 

( 4 ) TJiat sleeping lies, &c. 
Pan was not to be waked too soon with impunity. 

Ov Qifiig, ib iroi}iav, to fieaafj,j3pLvbv, ov Oefiig dfifiiv 
Hvpiodev tov Uava dedoiicansg' rj yap cnr' dypag 
Taviica KtKjjMKiog dfi7raverai' ivri de 7rucpbg 
Kai vi del dpifida x°^<*- ttoti pivi /ca^ijrai. 

— Theocritus, Idyll, i. v. 15. 

No, shepherd, no ; we must not pipe at noon : 
We must fear Pan, who sleeps after the chase, 
Ready to start in snappish bitterness 
With quivering nostril. 

What a true picture of the half-goat divinity ! 



A SPOT FOR LOVE-TALES. 

Here be all new delights, cool streams and wells ; 
Arbours o'ergrown with woodbines ; caves and dells. 
Choose where thou wait, whilst I sit by and sing, 
Or gather rushes, to make many a ring 
For thy long fingers ; tell thee tales of love ; 
How the pale Phoebe, hunting in a grove, 
First saw the boy Endymion, from whose eyes 
She took eternal fire that never dies ; 
How she conveyed him softly in a sleep, 
His temples bound with poppy, to the steep 
Head of old Latmus, where she stoops each night, 
Gilding the mountain with her brother's light, 
To kiss her sweetest. 



BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 191 



MORNING. 

See, the day begins to break, 
And the light shoots like a streak 
Of subtle fire. The wind blows cold 
While the morning doth unfold. 

I have departed from my plan for once, to introduce 

this very small extract, partly for the sake of its beauty, 

partly to show the student that great poets do not confine 

their pleasant descriptions to images or feelings pleasing 

in the commoner sense of the word, but include such as, 

while seeming to contradict, harmonize with them, upon 

principles of truth, and of a genial and strenuous sympathy. 

The " subtle streak of fire " is obviously beautiful, but the 

addition of the cold wind is a truth welcome to those only 

who have strength as well as delicacy of apprehension, — or 

rather, that healthy delicacy which arises from the strength. 

Sweet and wholesome, and to be welcomed, is the chill 

breath of morning. There is a fine epithet for this kind of 

dawn in the elder Marston's Antonio and Melida: — 

» 

Is not yon gleam the shuddering mom, that flakes 

With silver tincture the east verge of heaven ? 



THE POWER OF LOVE. 

Hear, ye ladies that despise 
What the mighty Love has done ; 

Fear examples and be wise : 
Fair Calisto was a nun ; 



192 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 

Leda, sailing on the stream 
To deceive the hopes of man, 

Love accounting but a dream, 
Doted on a silver swan ; 

Danae, in a brazen tower, 

Where no love was, loved a shower. ( 5 ) 

Hear, ye ladies that are coy, 

What the mighty Love can do. 
Fear the fierceness of the boy : 

The chaste moon he makes to woo : 
Vesta, kindling holy fires, 

Circled round about with spies, 
Never dreaming loose desires, 

Doting at the altar dies ; 
llion in a short hour, higher 
He can build, and once more fire. 



( s ) Where no love was. 

See how extremes meet, and passion writes as conceit 
does, in these repetitions of a word : 

Where no love was, lov'd a shower. 

So, still more emphatically, in the instance afterwards : — > 

Fear the fierceness of the boy — 

than which nothing can be finer. Wonder and earnestness 
conspire to stamp the iteration of the sound. 



BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 193 



INVOCATION TO SLEEP. 

Sung to Music; the Empekob, Valentinian sitting by, sick, in a chair. 

Care-charming Sleep, thou easer of all woes, — 
Brother to Death, sweetly thyself dispose 
On this afflicted prince ; fall like a cloud 
In gentle showers ; give nothing that is loud 
Or painful to his slumbers ; — easy, sweet, ( 6 ) 
And as a purling stream, thou son of night, 
Pass by his troubled senses : — sing his pain, 
Like hollow murmuring wind, or silver rain ; 
Into this prince gently, oh, gently slide, 
And kiss him into slumbers like a bride! 



( 6 ) Easy, sweet. 

In rhymes like night and siveet, the fine ears of our 
ancestors discerned a harmony to which we have been 
unaccustomed. They perceived the double e, which is in 
the vowel i, — night nah-eet. There is an instance in a 
passage in the Midsummer* Night* s Dream, extracted at 
page 156, where the word bees, as well as mulberries and 
dewberries, is made to rhyme with eyes, arise, &c. Indeed, 
in such words as mulberries the practice is still retained, 
and e and i considered corresponding sounds in the 
fainter terminations of polysyllables -.—free, company, — 
fly, company. 

Was ever the last line of this invocation surpassed ? 
But it is all in the finest tone of mingled softness and 
earnestness. The verses are probably Fletcher's. He has 

13 



194 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 

repeated a passage of it in his poem entitled An Honest 
Man's Fortune : — 

Oh, man ! thou image of thy Maker's good, 
"What canst thou fear, when breath'd into thy blood 
His Spirit is that built thee ? What dull sense 
Makes thee suspect, in need, that Providence 
Who made the morning, and who plac'd the light 
Guide to thy labours ; who call'd up the night, 
And bid her fall upon thee like sweet showers 
In hollow murmurs to lock up thy powers? 

si sic omnia I 




ayjy, 




MIDDLETON, DECREE, AND/WEBSTER 



When about to speak of these and other extraordinary 
men of the days of Shakspeare, the Marstons, Eowleys, 
Massingers, Draytons, &c, including those noticed already, 
I wasted a good deal of time in trying to find out how it 
was that, possessing, as most of them did, such a pure 
vein of poetry, and sometimes saying as fine things as 
himself, they wrote so much that is not worth reading, 
sometimes not fit to be read. I might have considered 
that, either from self-love, or necessity, or both, too much 
writing is the fault of all ages and of every author. Even 
Homer, says Horace, sometimes nods. How many odes 
might not Horace himself have spared us ! How many 
of his latter books, Virgil ! What theology, Dante and 
Milton ! What romances, Cervantes ! What comedies, 
Ariosto ! What tragedies, Dryden ! What heaps of words, 
Chaucer and Spenser ! What Iliads, Pope ! 

Shakspeare's contemporaries, however, appear to have 
been a singularly careless race of men, compared with 



196 MIDDLETON, DECKER, AND WEBSTER. 

himself. Could they have been rendered so by that very 
superiority of birth and education which threw them upon 
the town, in the first instance, with greater confidence, his 
humbler prospects rendering him more cautious ? Or did 
their excess of wit and fancy require a counter-perfection 
of judgment, such as he only possessed ? Chapman and 
Drayton, though their pens were among the profusest and 
most unequal, seem to have been prudent men in conduct ; 
so in all probability were Ford and Webster ; but none of 
these had the animal spirits of the others. Shakspeare 
had animal spirits, wit, fancy, judgment, prudence in 
money matters, understanding like Bacon, feeling like 
Chaucer, mirth like Eabelais, dignity like Milton ! "What 
a man ! Has anybody discovered the reason why he never 
noticed a living contemporary, and but one who was dead ? 
and this too in an age of great men, and when they 
were in the habit of acknowledging the pretensions of one 
another. It could not have been jealousy, or formality, or 
inability to perceive merits which his own included ; and 
one can almost as little believe it possible to have been 
owing to a fear of disconcerting his aristocratic friends, for 
they too were among the eulogizers : neither can it be 
attributed to his having so mooted all points, as to end in 
caring for none ; for in so great and wise a nature, good 
nature must surely survive everything, both as a pleasure 
and a duty. I have made up my mind to think that his 
theatrical managership was the cause. It naturally pro- 
duced a dislike of pronouncing judgments and incurring 
responsibilities. And yet he was not always a manager ; 
nor were all his literary friends playwrights. I think it 



M1DDLET0N, DECKEK, AND WEBSTER. 197 

probable, from the style, that be wrote the sonnet in which 
Spenser is eulogized : — • 

If music and sweet poetry agree, &c. ; 
but this is doubtful ; and Spenser was not one of his 
dramatic fellows. Did he see too many faults in them 
all to praise them ! ! Certainly the one great difference 
between him and them, next to superiority of genius, is 
the prevailing relevancy of all he wrote ; its freedom, how- 
ever superabundant, from inconsistency and caprice. But 
could he find nothing to praise ? Nothing in the whole 
contemporary drama ? Nothing in all the effusions of his 
friends and brother clubbists of the " Mermaid " and the 
"Triple Tun?" 

I take Webster and Decker to have been the two 
greatest of the Shakspeare mem for unstudied genius, 
next after Beaumont and Fletcher ; and in some respects 
they surpassed them. Beaumont and Fletcher have no 
such terror as Webster, nor any such piece of hearty, 
good, affecting human clay as Decker's " Old Signior 
Orlando Friscobaldo." Is there any such man even in 
Shakspeare ? — any suoh exaltation of that most delightful 
of all things, bonhomie ? Webster sometimes overdoes his 
terror ; nay, often. He not only riots, he debauches in it ; 
and Decker, full of heart and delicacy as he is, and 
qualified to teach refinement to the refined, condescends to 
an astounding coarseness. Beaumont and Fletcher's good 
company saved them from that, in words. In spirit they 
are full of it. But Decker never mixes up (at least not as 
far as I can remember) any such revolting and impossible 
contradictions in the same character as they do. Neither 



198 MIDDLETON, DECKER, AND WEBSTER. 

does he bring a doubt on bis virtues by exaggerating them. 

He believes heartily in what he does believe, and you 

love him in consequence. It was he that wrote that 

character, the piety of which has been pronounced equal to 

its boldness : — 

The best of men 
That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer ; 
A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit ; 
The first true gentleman that ever breath'd. 

His universal sympathy enabled him to strike out that 
audacious and happy simile, " untameable as flies," which 
Homer would have admired, though it is fit to make 
poetasters shudder. The poetaster, had Decker offered to 
make him a present of it, would have been afraid of being 
taken for a fly himself. Images are either grand in them- 
selves, or for the thought and feeling that accompany 
them. This has all the greatness of Nature's " equal eye." 
You may see how truly Decker felt it to be of this kind, 
by the company in which he has placed it ; and there is a 
consummation of propriety in its wildness, for he is speak- 
ing of lunatics : — 

There are of mad men, as there are of tame, 

All humour'd not alike. "We have here some 

So apish and fantastic, will play with a feather ; 

And though 't would grieve a soul to see God's image 

So blemish'd and defaced, yet do they act 

Such antic and such pretty lunacies, 

That, spite of sorrow, they will make you smile. 

Others again we have like hungry lions, 

Fierce as wild bulls, untameable as flies. 

Middleton partakes of the poetry and sweetness of 
Decker, but not to the same height : and he talks more at 
random. You hardly know what to make of the dialogue 



MIDDLETON, DECKER, AND WEBSTEE. 199 

or stories of some of his plays. But lie has more fancy : 
and there is one character of his (De Flores in the 
" Changeling ") which, for effect at once tragical, probable, 
and poetical, surpasses anything I know of in the drama 
of domestic life. Middleton has the honour of having 
furnished part of the witch poetry to Macbeth, and of being 
conjoined with it also in the powerful and beautiful music 
of Locke. 

From Massinger, Ford, and the others (as far as I 
have met with them, and apart from the connexion of 
Massinger' s name with Decker), I could find nothing to 
extract of a nature to suit this particular volume, and of 
equal height with its contents. It is proper to state, how- 
ever, that I have only glanced through their works : for 
though no easily daunted reader, I never read an entire 
play either of Ford or Massinger. They repel me with the 
conventional tendencies of their style, and their unnatural 
plots and characters. Ford, however, is elegant and 
thoughtful ; and Massinger has passion, though (as far as 
I know) not in a generous shape. With these two writers 
began that prosaical part of the corruption of dramatic 
style (merging passionate language into conventional) 
which came to its head in Shirley. 

JDonusa. "What magic hath transform d me from myself? 
Where is my virgin pride ? how have I lost 
My boasted freedom ! what new fire burns up 
My scorch'd entrails ! ! what unknown desires 
Invade, and take possession of my soul? 

— Massinger's Renegado. 

Hialas. To this union 

The good of both the Church and Commonwealth 
Invite you. 



200 MIDDLETON, DECKER, AND WEBSTER. 

Durham. To this unity, a mystery 
Of Providence points out a greater blessing 
For both these nations, than our human wisdom 
Can search into. King Henry hath a daughter, 
The Princess Margaret. I need not urge, &c. 

— Ford's Perltin Warbeck. 

Both these passages are the first I came to, on clipping 
into their works. One might fancy oneself reading Cato 
or the Grecian Daughter, instead of men who had breathed 
the air of the days of Shakspeare. 

Massinger was joint author with Decker, of the play 
from which the scene of the lady and the angel is taken ; 
but nobody who knows the style of the two men can doubt 
for a moment to which it belongs. I have, therefore, 
without hesitation assigned it according to the opinion 
expressed by Mr. Lamb. 



FLIGHT OF WITCHES. 

Scene, a Field. Enter Hecate, Stadlin, Hoppo, and other Witches 
Firestone in the background. 

Hec. The moon's a gallant ; see how brisk she rides ! 

Stad. Here's a rich evening, Hecate. 

Hec. Ay, is 't not, wenches, 

To take a journey of five thousand miles ? 

Hec. O 't will be precious ! 

Heard you the owl yet ? 

Stad. Briefly in the copse, 

As we came through now. 

Hec. 'T is high time for us then. 

Stad. Tliere ivas a bat hung at my lips three times, 
As we came through the woods, and drank her fill : 
Old Puckle saw her. 



MIDDLETON, DECKER, AND WEBSTER. 201 

flee. You are fortunate still ; 

The very screech-owl lights upon your shoulder, 
And woos you like a pigeon. Are you furnished ? 
Have you your ointments ? 

Stad. All. 

Hec. Prepare to flight then ; 

I'll overtake you swiftly. 

8 tad. Hie thee, Hecate ; 

We shall be up betimes. 

Hec. I'll reach you quickly. 

[Exeunt all the Witches except Hecate. 

Fire. They are all going a-birding to-night : they talk of fowls i' 
th' air that fly by day ; I am sure they '11 be a company of foul sluts 
there to-night : if we have not mortality after 't, I '11 be hanged, for 
they are able to putrefy it, to infect a whole region. She spies me 
now. 

Hec. What, Firestone, our sweet son ? 

Fire. A little sweeter than some of you, or a dunghill were too 
good for me. [Aside. 

Hec. How much hast here ? 

Fire. Nineteen, and all brave plump ones, 

besides six lizards and three serpentine eggs. 

Hec. Dear and sweet boy ! what herbs hast thou ? 

Fire. I have some marmartin and mandragon. 

Hec. Marmaritin and mandragora, thou wouldst say. 

Fire. Here 's panax too — I thank thee — my pan aches I 'm sure, 
with kneeling down to cut 'em. 

Hec. And selago., 

Heclge-hysop too : how near he goes my cuttings ! 
Were they all cropt by moonlight ? 

Fire. Every blade of 'em, 

Or I 'm a moon-calf, mother. 

Hec. Hie thee home with them : 

Look well to the house to-night ; I 'm for aloft. 

Fire. Aloft, quoth you ? I would you would break your neck 
once, that I might have all quickly ! [Aside.] Hark, hark, mother ! 
they are above the steeple already, flying over your head with a noise 
of musicians. 

Hec. They're they indeed. Help, help me ; I 'm too late 
elso. 



202 MIDDLETON, DECKER, AND "WEBSTER. 



SONG ABOVE. 

Come away, come away, 
Hecate, Hecate, come away. 
Hec. I come, I come, I come, I come, 
With all the speed I may. 
Where's Stadlin? 
[Voice above.] Here. 

Hec. Where 's Puckle ? 
[Voice above.] Here. 

And Hoppo too, and Hellwain too ; 
We lack but yon, we lack but you ; 
Come away, make up the count. 
Hec. I will but 'noint and then I mount. 

[A spirit like a cat descends. 
[Voice above.] There 's one comes down to fetch his dues, 
A kiss, a coll, a sip of blood ; 
And why thou stay'st so long, I muse, 
Since the air 's so sweet and good ? 
Hec. O, art thou come ? what news, what news ? 
Spirit. All goes still to our delight. 
Either come or else refuse. 
Hec. Now I 'm furnished for the flight. 
Fire. Hark, hark, the cat rings a brave treble in her own 
language ! 

Hec. [going up.] Now I go, now I fly, 

MalJcin my sweet spirit and I. 
O what a dainty pleasure 't is 
To ride in the air 
When the moon shines fair, 
And sing and dance, and toy and kiss ! 
Over woods, high rocks, and mountains, 
Over seas, our mistress' fountains ; 
Over steeples, towers, and turrets, 
We fly by night, 'mongst troops of spirits,: 
No ring of bells to our ear sounds ; 
No howls of wolves, no yelps of hounds ; 



MJDDLETON, DECKER, AND WEBSTER. 203 

No, not the noise of water's breach. 
Or cannon's throat our height can reach. 
[Voice above.] No ring of hells, &c. 
Fire. Well, mother, I thank your kindness : you must be gambol- 
ling i* th' air, and leave me to walk here, like a fool and a mortal. 

— Middleton. 



THE CHRISTIAN LADY AND THE ANGEL. 

An Angel, in the guise of a Page, attends on Dorothea. 

Dor. My book and taper. 

Ang. Here, most holy mistress. 

Dor. Thy voice sends forth such music, that I never 
Was ravish'd with a more celestial sound. 
Were every servant in the world like thee, 
So full of goodness, angels would come down 
To dwell with us : thy name is Angelo, 
And like that name thou art. Get thee to rest ; 
Thy youth with too much watching is opprest. 

Ang. No, my dear lady ; I could weary stars, 
And force the wakeful moon to lose her eyes, 
By my late watching, but to wait on you. 
When at your prayers you kneel before the altar, 
Methinks Tm singing with some quire in heaven, 
So blest I hold me in your company ; 
Therefore, my most lov'd mistress, do not bid 
Your boy, so serviceable, to get hence ; 
For then you break his heart. 

Dor. Be nigh me still then. 

In golden letters down I '11 set that day 
Which gave thee to me. Little did I hope 
To meet such worlds of comfort in thyself, 
This little, pretty body, when I, coming 
Forth of the temple, heard my beggar-boy, 
My sweet-faced, godly beggar-boy, crave an alms, 
Which with glad hand I gave, with lucky hand ! — 



204 MIDDLETON, DECKER, AND WEBSTER. 

And when I took thee home, my most chaste bosom 
Methought was fill'd with no hot wanton fire, 
But with a holy flame, mounting since higher, 
On wings of cherubirns, than it did before. 

Ang. Proud am I, that my lady's modest eye 
So likes so poor a servant. 

Dor. I have offer'd 

Handfuls of gold but to behold thy parents. 
I would leave kingdoms, were I queen of some, 
To dwell with thy good father : for, the son 
Bewitching me so deeply with his presence, 
He that begot him must do it ten times more. 
I pray thee, my sweet boy, show me thy parents ; 
Be not asham'd. 

Ang. I am not : I did never 

Know who my mother was ; but by yon palace, 
Fill'd with bright heavenly courts, I dare assure you, 
And pawn these eyes upon it, and this hand, 
My father is in heaven ; and, pretty mistress, 
If your illustrious hour-glass spend his sand 
No worse than yet it does, upon my life, 
You and I both shall meet my father there, 
And he shall bid you welcome ! 

Dor. O blessed day ! 

We all long to be there, but lose the way. 

[Exeunt. 

Dorothea is executed ; and the Angel visits THEormLUs, the Judge 
that condemned her. 

Theoph. {alone). This Christian slut was well, 

A pretty one ; but let such horror follow 
The next I feed with torments, that when Rome 
Shall hear it, her foundation at the sound 
May feel an earthquake. How now? (Music.) 

Ang. Are you amazed, sir ? 

So great a Roman spirit, and doth it tremble ? 

Theoph. How cam'st thou in ? to whom thy business ? 

Ang. To you. 
I had a mistress, late sent hence by you 



MIDDLETON, DECKER, AND WEBSTER. 205 

Upon a bloody errand ; you entreated 
That, when she came into that blessed garden 
Whither she knew she went, and where, now happy, 
She feeds upon all joy, she would send to you 
Some of that garden fruit and flowers ; which here, 
To have her promise sav'd, are brought by me. 

Theoph. Cannot I see this garden ? 

Ang. Yes, if the master 

Will give you entrance. [He vanishes. 

Theoph. 'T is a tempting fruit, 

And the most bright-cheek' d child I ever view'd ; 
Sweet-smelling, goodly fruit. What flowers are these ? 
In Dioclesian's gardens, the most beauteous 
Compar'd with these are weeds : is it not February, 
The second day she died ? frost, ice, and snow 
Hang on the beard of winter ? where 's the sun 
That gilds this summer ? pretty, sweet boy, say, 
In what country shall a man find this garden ? — 
My delicate boy, — gone ! vanish'd ! within there, 
Julianus ! Geta ! 

Both. My lord. 

Theoph. Are my gates shut ? 

Geta. And guarded. 

Theoph. Saw you not 

A boy? 

Jul. Where? 

Theoph. Here he enter'd, a young lad ; 

A thousand blessings daned upon his eyes ; 
A smooth-faed glorious thing, that brought this basket. 

Geta. No, sir. 

Theoph. Away ! but be in reach, if my voice calls you. 

— Decker. 



LADIES DANCING. 

A fine sweet earthquake, gently mov'cl 
By the soft wind of whispering silks. 

— Id. 



206 



MIDDLETON, DECKER, AND WEBSTER. 



APRIL AND WOMEN'S TEARS. 

Trust not a woman when she cries, 

For she'll pump water from her eyes 

With a wet finger, and in faster showers 

Than April when he rains down flowers. 

— Decker. 



DEATH. 

There 's a lean fellow beats all conquerors. 



PATIENCE. 

DuTce. What comfort do you find in being so calm ? 

Candido. That which green wounds receive from sovereign balm* 
Patience, my lord ! why, 't is the soul of peace ; 
Of all the virtues 't is nearest kin to heaven ; 
It makes men look like gods. The best of men 
That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer, 
A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit, 
The first true gentleman that ever breath' d. 
The stock of patience then cannot be poor ; 
All it desires, it has ; what award more ? 
It is the greatest enemy to law 
That can be, for it doth embrace all wrongs, 
And so chains up lawyers and women's tongues : 
'Tis the perpetual prisoner s liberty, 
His walks and orchards : 't is the bond-slave's freedom, 
And makes him seem proud of his iron chain, 
As though he wore it more for state than pain ; 



MIDDLETON, DECKER, AND WEBSTER. 207 

It is the beggars' music, and thus sings, — 
Although their bodies beg, their souls are kings. 
O my dread liege ! it is the sap of bliss, 
Bears us aloft, makes men and angels Mss : 
And last of all, to end a household strife, 
It is the honey 'gainst a waspish wife. 

— Decker. 

I had a doubt whether to put this exquisite passage 
into the present volume, or to reserve it for one of Contem- 
plative poetry; but the imagination, which few will not 
think predominant in it, together with a great admiration 
of the sentiments, of the thoughtful, good-natured alterna- 
tion of jest and earnest, and of the sweetness of the versifi- 
cation, increased by a certain wild mixture of rhyme and 
blank verse, determined me to indulge the impulse. Per- 
haps Decker, who had experienced the worst troubles of 
poverty, not excepting loss of liberty, drew his patient man 
from himself, half jesting over the portrait, in order to 
reconcile his praises of the virtue in the abstract with a 
modest sense of it in his own person. To the strain in it 
of a " higher mood," I cannot but append what Mr. Hazlitt 
has said in his Lectures on the Literature of the Age of 
Elizabeth (Templeman's edition, p. 21). " There have 
been persons who, being sceptics as to the divine mission 
of Christ, have taken an unaccountable prejudice to his 
doctrines, and have been disposed to deny the merit of his 
character ; but this was not the feeling of the great men in 
the age of Elizabeth (whatever might be their belief), one 
of whom says of him, with a boldness equal to its piety, 
* The best of men,' " &c. (Here the lecturer quotes the 
verses alluded to, and adds,) " This was honest old Decker; 



208 MIDDLETON, DECKER, AND WEBSTER. 

and the lines ought to embalm his memory to every one 
who has a sense either of religion, or philosophy, or 
humanity, or true genius." 



A WICKED DREAM. 

Vittoria Corombona. To pass away the time I'll tell your grace 
A dream I had last night. 

Brachiano. Most wishedly. 

Vit. Cor. A foolish idle dream. 
Methought I walk'd, about the mid of night, 
Into a churchyard, where a goodly yew-tree 
Spread her large root in ground. Under that yew, 
As I sat sadly leaning on a grave 
Checquer'd with cross-sticks, there came stealing in 
Your duchess and my husband ; one of them 
A pickaxe bore, th' other a rusty spade, 
And in rough terms they 'gan to challenge me 
About this yew. 

Brack. That tree ? 

Vit. Cor. This harmless yew. 

They told me my intent was to root up 
That well-known yew, and plant i' th' stead of it 
A wither' cl blackthorn : and for that they vow'd 
To bury me alive. My husband straight 
With pickaxe 'gan to dig ; and your fell duchess 
With shovel, like a fury, voided out 
The earth, and scattered bones : Lord, how, methought, 
I trembled, and yet for all this terror 
I could not pray — 

Flamineo (aside). No; the devil was in your dream. 

Vit. Cor. When to my rescue there arose, methought, 
A whirlwind, which let fall a massy arm 
From that strong plant ; 



MIDDLETON, DECKER, AND WEBSTER. 



209 



And both were struck dead by tliat sacred yew, 
In that base shallow grave ivhich was their due. 

Flamineo {aside). Excellent devil! she hath taught him in a dream 
To make away his duchess and her husband. 

— Webstek. 



NATURAL DEATH. 

O thou soft natural death, that art joint twin 
To sweetest slumber ! no rough-bea,rded comet 
Stares on thy mild departure ; the dull owl 
Beats not against thy casement ; the hoarse wolf 
Scents not thy carrion : pity winds thy corse, 
Whilst horror waits on princes. 

—Id. 



FUNERAL DIRGE. 

(Sung by a Mother over her Son.) 

Call for the robin redbreast and the wren, 

Since o'er shady groves they hover, 

And with leaves of flowers do cover 
The friendless bodies of unburied men. 

Call unto his funeral dole 

The ant, the field-mouse, and the mole, 
To raise him hillocks that shall heep him warm ; 
And when gay tombs are robb'd sustain no harm : 
But keep the wolf far thence, that's foe to men, 
For with his nails he 11 dig them up again. 

—Id. 

" I never saw," says Lamb, " anything like this dirge, 
except the ditty which reminds Ferdinand of his drowned 
father in the Tempest. That is of the water, watery ; so 

14 



210 MIDDLETON, DECKER, AND WEBSTER. 

this is of the earth, earthy. Both have that intenseness 
of feeling which seems to resolve itself into the elements 
which it contemplates." — Dramatic Specimens, Moxon's 
edition, vol. i. p. 251. 



DISSIMULATION. 

Be not cunning ; 
For those whose faces do belie their hearts 
Are witches ere they arrive at twenty years, 
And give the devil suck. 

— Webster. 



BEAUTEOUS MORAL EXAMPLE. 

Her I hold 
My honourable pattern ; one whose mind 
Appears more like a ceremonious chapel. 
Full of sweet music, than a thronging presence. 

—Id. 



UNLOVELINESS OF FROWNING. 

Cupid sets a crown 

Upon those lovely tresses ; 
O spoil not with a frown 

What he so sweetly dresses ! 

— Id. 



MILTON. 

BORN, 1608,— DIED, 1674. 



It is difficult to know what to do with some of the finest 
passages in Milton's great poem. To treat the objection- 
able points of their story as mythological, might be thought 
irreverent to opinion ; and to look upon them in the light 
in which he at first wished us to regard them (for he is 
understood to have changed his own opinions of it), in- 
volves so much irreverence towards the greatest of beings, 
that it is painful to seem to give them countenance. The 
difficulty is increased in a volume' of the present kind, 
which is intended to give the reader no perplexity, except 
to know what to admire most. I have, therefore, thought 
it best to confine the extracts from Paradise Lost to 
unconnected passages ; and the entire ones to those poems 
which he wrote when a happy youth, undegenerated into 
superstition. The former will still include his noblest 
flights of imagination : the rest are ever fresh, true, and 
delightful. 

Milton was a very great poet, second only (if second) 
to the very greatest, such as Dante and Shakspeare ; and, 



212 MILTON. 

like all great poets, equal to them in particular instances. 
He had no pretensions to Shakspeare's universality ; his wit 
is dreary ; and (in general) he had not the faith in things 
that Homer and Dante had, apart from the intervention of 
words. He could not let them speak for themselves with- 
out helping them with his learning. In all he did, after 
a certain period of youth (not to speak it irreverently), 
something of the schoolmaster is visible ; and a gloomy 
religious creed removes him still farther from the universal 
gratitude and delight of mankind. He is understood, 
however, as I have just intimated, to have given this up 
before he died. He had then run the circle of his know- 
ledge, and probably come round to the wiser, more cheerful, 
and more poetical beliefs of his childhood. 

In this respect, Allegro and Penseroso are the happiest 
of his productions : and in none is the poetical habit of 
mind more abundantly visible. They ought to precede 
the Lycidas (not unhurt with theology) in the modern 
editions of his works, as they did in the collection of minor 
poems made by himself. Paradise Lost is a study for 
imagination and elaborate musical structure. Take almost 
any passage, and a lecture might be read from it on con- 
trasts and pauses, and other parts of metrical harmony; 
while almost every word has its higher poetical meaning 
and intensity ; but all is accompanied with a certain oppres- 
siveness of ambitious and conscious power. In the Allegro 
and Penseroso, &c, he is in better spirits with all about 
him ; his eyes had not grown dim, nor his soul been forced 
inwards by disappointment into a proud self-esteem, which 
he narrowly escaped erecting into self-worship. He loves 



MILTON. 213 

nature, not for the power lie can get out of it, but for tha 
pleasure it affords him ; he is at peace with town as well 
as country, with courts and cathedral- windows ; goes to 
the play and laughs ; to the village-green and dances ; 
and his study is placed, not in the Old Jewry, but in an 
airy tower, from whence he good-naturedly hopes that his 
candle — I beg pardon, his " lamp " (for he was a scholar 
from the first, though not a Puritan) — may be " seen " by 
others. His mirth, it is true, is not excessively merry. 
It is, as Warton says, the " dignity of mirth ; " but it is 
happy, and that is all that is to be desired. The mode is 
not to be dictated by the mode of others ; nor would it be 
so interesting if it were. The more a man is himself the 
better, provided he add a variation to the stock of comfort, 
and not of sullenness. Milton was born in a time of great 
changes ; he was bred to be one of the changers ; and in 
the order of events, and the working of good out of ill, we 
are bound to be grateful to what was of a mixed nature in 
himself, without arrogating for him that exemption from 
the mixture which belongs to no man. But upon the 
same principle on which nature herself loves joy better 
than grief, health than disease, and a general amount of 
welfare than the reverse (urging men towards it where it 
does not prevail, and making many a form of discontent 
itself but a mode of pleasure and self-esteem), so Milton's 
great poem never has been, and never can be popular 
(sectarianism apart) compared with his minor ones ; nor 
does it, in the very highest sense of popularity, deserve to 
be. It does not work out the very piety it proposes ; and 
the piety which it does propose wants the highest piety of 



2 14 MILTON. 

an intelligible charity and reliance. Hence a secret pre- 
ference for his minor poems among many of the truest and 
selectest admirers of Paradise Lost, — perhaps with all who 
do not admire power in any shape above truth in the best ; 
hence Warton's fond edition of them, delightful for its 
luxurious heap of notes and parallel passages ; and hence 
the pleasure of being able to extract the finest of them, 
without misgiving, into a volume like the present. 



SATAN'S RECOVERY FROM HIS DOWNFALL. 

He scarce had ceas'cl, when the superior Fiend 

"Was moving toward the shore, his ponderous shield, 

Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round, 

Behind him cast ; the broad circumference 

Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb 

Through optich glass the Tuscan artist views 

At evening from the top of ' Fesole. 

Or in Valdarno, to discry new lands, 

Rivers or mountains in her spotty globe. 

His spear, to equal which the tallest i)ine 

Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast 

Of some great ammiral, were but a wand, 

He walk'd with, to support uneasy steps 

Over the burning marie, not like those steps 

On Heaven's azure ; and the torrid clime 

Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire : 

Nathless he so endur'd, till on the beach 

Of that inflamed sea he stood, and call'd 

His legions, angel forms, who lay entranc'd 

Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks 

In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades, 

High over-arclid, embower ; or scatter' d sedge 

Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion arm'd 



MILTON. 215 

Hatli vexcl the Red- Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew 

Busiris and his Memphian chivalry, 

"While with perfidious hatred they pursued 

The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld 

From the safe shore their floating carcasses 

And broken chariot wheels : so thick bestrown, 

Abject and lost lay these, covering the flood 

Under amazement of their hideous change. 

He calld so loud that all the hollow deep 

Of Hell resounded. " Princes, Potentates, 

Warriors, the flower of Heaven, once yours, now lost, 

If such astonishment as this can seize 

Eternal spirits ; or have ye chosen this place 

After the toil of battle to repose 

Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find 

To slumber here, as in the vales of Heaven ? 

Or in this abject posture have ye sworn 

To adore the conqueror ? who now beholds 

Cherub and Seraph rolling in the flood, 

With scatter'd arms and ensigns ; till anon 

His swift pursuers from heaven-gates discern 

The advantage, and descending, tread us down, 

Thus drooping, or with linked thunderbolts 

Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf. 

Awake ! arise ! or be for ever fallen ! " 



THE FALLEN ANGELS GATHERED AGAIN TO WAR. 

All these and more came flocking ; but with looks 
Downcast and damp ; yet such wherein appear'd, 
Obscure, some glimpse of joy, to have found their chief 
Not in despair ; to have found themselves not lost 
In loss itself ; which on his countenance cast 
Like doubtful hue ; but he, his wonted pride 
Soon recollecting, with high words, that bore 
Semblance of worth, not substance, gently rais'd 
Their fainting courage, and dispell'cl their fears. 



216 MILTON. 

Then, straight commands, that at the warlike sound 

Of trumpets loud and clarions be uprear'd 

His mighty standard : that proud honour claim'd 

Azazel as his right, a cherub tall ; 

Who forthwith from the glittering staff unfurl'd 

The imperial ensign ; which, full high advanc'd, 

Shone like a meteor streaming to the wind, 

With gems and golden lustre rich emblaz'd, 

Seraphic arms and trophies ; all the while 

Sonorous metal bloiving martial sounds : 

At which the universal host up-sent 

A shout, that tore Hell's concave, and beyond 

Frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night. 

All in a moment through the gloom were seen 

Ten thousand banners rise into the air 

With orient colours waving : with them rose 

A forest huge of spears ; and thronging helms 

Appear'd, and serried shields, in thick array 

Of depth immeasurable : anon they move 

In perfect phalanx to the Dorian mood 

Of flutes and soft recorders ; such as reds' d 

To height of noblest temper heroes old 

Arming to battle ; and instead of rage 

Deliberate valour breath' d, firm and unmov'd 

With dread of death to flight or foul retreat ; 

Nor wanting power to mitigate and swage 

With solemn touches troubled thoughts, and chase 

Anguish, and doubt, and fear, and sorrow, and pain. 

From mortal, or immortal minds. Thus they 

Breathing united force, ivith fixed thought, 

Mov'd on in silence to soft pipes, that charm d 

Their painful steps o'er the burnt soil: and now 

Advanc'd in view they stand, a horrid front 

Of dreadful length and dazzling arms, in guise 

Of warriors old with order'd spear and shield ; 

Awaiting what command their mighty chief 

Had to impose : he through the armed files 

Darts his experiene'd eye, and soon traverse 

The whole battalion views ; their order due ; 

Their visages and stature as of gpds ; 



MILTON. 217 

Their number last lie sums. And now his heart 
Distends with pride, and hardening in his strength, 
Glories : for never, since created man, 
Met such embodied force, as nam'd with these 
Could merit more than that small infantry 
Warr'd on by cranes; though all the giant brood 
Of Phlegra with the heroic race were join'd 
That fought at Thebes and Ilium, on each side 
Mixed with auxiliar gods ; and what resounds 
In fable or romance of Uther's son 
Begirt with British and Armorick knights ; 
And all who since, baptized or infidel, 
Jousted in Aspramont, or Montalban, 
Damasco, or Morocco, or Trebisond, 
Or whom Biserta sent from Africk shore, 
When Charlemain with all his peerage fell 
By Fontarabbia. Thus far these beyond 
Compare of mortal prowess, yet observ'd 
Their dread commander : he, above the rest 
In shape and gesture proudly eminent, 
Stood like a tower : his form had yet not lost 
All her original brightness ; nor appear d 
Less than arch-angel ruin'd, and the excess 
Of glory obscurd : as when the sun, new risen, 
Looks through the horizontal misty air 
Shorn of his beams ; or from behind the moon, 
In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds 
On half the nations, andnvith fear of change 
Perplexes monarchs. Darken d so, yet shone 
Above them all the arch- angel : but his face 
Beep scars of thunder had intrench' d ; and care 
Sat on his faded cheek ; but under brows 
Of dauntless courage, and considerate pride, 
Waiting revenge. 



218 MILTON. 



VULCAN. 

Nor was his name unheard, or unador'd 
In ancient Greece ; — and in Ausonian land 
Men call'd lihn Mulciber ; and how he fell 
From heaven, they fabled, thrown by angry Jove 
Sheer oer the crystal battlements. From mom 
To noon he fell ;—from noon to dewy eve, 
A summer s day ; and with the setting sun 
Dropt from the zenith like a falling star. 



THE FALLEN ANGELS HEARD RISING FROM COUNCIL. 

Their rising all at once was as the sound 
Of thunder heard remote. 



#™ 



SATAN ON THE WING FOR EARTH. 

Meanwhile the adversary of God and man, 

Satan, with thoughts inflam'd of highest design, 

Puts on swif t wings, and toward the gates of hell 

Explores his solitary flight : sometimes 

He scours the right-hand coast, sometimes the left 

Now shaves with level wing the deep ; then soars 

Up to the fiery concave towering high. 

As when far off at sea a fleet descried 

Hangs in the clouds, by equinoctial winds 

Close sailing from Bengala, or the isles 

Of Ternate and Tidore, whence merchants bring 



MILTON. 



219 



Their spicy drugs ; they, on the trading flood, 
Through the wide Ethiopian to the Cape, 
Ply stemming nightly towards the pole : So seem'd 
Far off the flying Fiend. 



THE MEETING OF SATAN AND DEATH. 

The other shape, 
If sliape it might be calVd that shape had none 
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb ; 
Or substance might be calVd that shadow seemd, 
For each seemed either : black it stood as Night, 
Fierce as ten Furies, terrible as Hell, 
And shook a dreadful dart ; what seem'd his head 
The likeness of a kingly crown had on. 
Satan was now at hand, and from his seat 
The monster moving onward came as fast 
With horrid strides ; Hell trembled as he strode. 
The undaunted Fiend what this might be admir'd, 
Admir'd, not fear d ; God and his Son except, 
Created thing nought valued he, nor shunn'd ; 
And with disdainful look thus first hegan : — 

" Whence and what art thou, execrable shape ! 
That dar'st, though grim and terrible, advance 
Thy miscreated front athwart my way 
To yonder gates ? through them I mean to pass, 
That be assur'd, without leave asked of thee : 
Retire, or taste thy folly ; and learn by proof, 
Hell-born ! not to contend with Spirits of Heaven." 

To whom the Goblin, full of wrath, replied : — 
" Art thou that Traitor- angel : art thou he 
Who first broke peace in Heaven, and faith, till then 
Unbroken ; and in proud rebellious arms 
Drew after him the third part of Heaven's sons 
Conjur'd against the Highest ; for which both thou 
And they, outcast from God, are here condemn'd 
To waste eternal days in woe and pain ! 



220 MILTON. 

And reckon' st thou thyself with Spirits of Heaven, 
Hell-doomed ! and breath' st defiance here and scorn, 
Where I reign king, and to enrage thee more, 
Thy king and lord ? Back to thy punishment, 
False fugitive ! and to thy speed add wings, 
Lest with a whip of scorpions I pursue 
Thy lingering, or with one stroke of this dart, 
Strange horror seize thee, and pangs unfelt before " 

So spake the grizly Terror, and in shape 
So speaking and so threatening, grew ten-fold 
More dreadful and deform. On the other side 
Incens'd with indignation, Satan stood 
Unterrified, and like a comet burnd, 
That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge 
In the arctic sky, and from his horrid hair 
Shakes pestilence and war. Each at the head 
Levelled his deadly aim ; their fatal hands 
No second stroke intend; and such a frown 
Each cast at the other, as when two black clouds 
With Heavens artillery fraught, come rattling on 
Over the Caspian, then stand front to front, 
Hovering a space, till winds the signal blow 
To join their dark encounter in mid air : 
So frown'd the mighty combatants, that hell 
Grew darker at their frown ; so match'd they stood ; 
For never but once more was either like 
To meet so great a foe : and now great deeds 
Had been achiev'd, whereof all hell had rung, 
Had not the snaky Sorceress that sat 
Fast by hell-gate, and kept the fatal key, 
Risen, and with hideous outcry rush'd between. 



MILTON. 



221 



L'ALLEGRO. 

Hence, loathed Melancholy, 

Of Cerberus and blackest midnight born 

In Stygian cave forlorn, 

'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy! 

Find out some uncouth cell, 

Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings, 

And the night-raven sings ; 

There under ebon shades, and low brow'd rocks 

As ragged as thy locks, 

In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell. 

But come, thou goddess fair and free, 

In heaven yclept Euphrosyne, 

And by men, heart- easing Mirth ; 

Whom lovely Venus at a birth, 

With two sister Graces more, 

To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore : 

Or whether (as some sager sing) (') 

The frolic wind, that breathes the spring, 

Zephyr with Aurora playing, 

As he met her once a Maying, 

There on beds of violets blue 

And fresh-blown roses wash'd in clew, 

Fill'd her with thee, a daughter fair, 

So buxom, blithe and debonair, 

Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee 

Jest and youthful Jollity, 

Quips and Cranks, and wanton Wiles, (*) 

Nods and Becks and wreathed Smiles 

Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, 

And love to live in dimple sleek ; 

Sport that wrinkled Care derides, 

And Laughter holding both his 



222 MILTON. 



Gome and trip it, as you go, 

On the light fantastic toe ; 

And in thy right hand lead with thee 

The mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty ; 

And, if I give thee honour due, 

Mirth, admit me of thy crew, 

To live with her, and live with thee, 

In unreproved pleasures free ; 

To hear the lark begin his flight, 

And singing, startle the dull night, 

From his watch-tower in the skies, 

Till the dappled dawn doth rise ; 

Then to come in spite of sorrow, 

And at my window bid good morrow, 

Through the sweetbrier, or the vine, ( 3 ) 

Or the twisted eglantine ; 

"While the cock with lively din 

Scatters the rear of darkness thin, 

And to the stack or the barn-door 

Stoutly struts his dames before : 

Oft listening how the hounds and horn 

Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn, 

From the side of some hoar hill, 

Through the high wood echoing shrill : 

Sometimes walking, not unseen, 

By hedgerow elms, on hillocks green, 

Eight against the eastern gate 

"Where the great Sun begins his state, 

Robed in flames and amber light, 

The clouds in thousand liveries dight ; 

While the ploughman, near at hand, 

Whistles o'er the furrowed land, 

And the milkmaid singeth blithe, 

And the mower whets his scythe, 

And every shepherd tells his tale ( 4 ) 

Under the hawthorn in the dale. 

Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures, 

"Whilst the landskip round it measures ; 

Russet lawns, and fallows gray, 

"Where the nibbling flocks do stray ; 



MILTON. 223 

Mountains, on whose barren breast 
The labouring clouds do often rest ; 
Meadows trim with daisies pied, 
Shallow brooks and rivers wide. 
Towers and battlements it sees 
Bosom d high in tiifted trees, 
Where perhaps some beauty lies, 
The cynosure of neighbouring eyes. ( ij ) 
Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes 
From betwixt two aged oaks ; 
Where Corydon and Thyrsis, met, 
Are at their savoury dinner set 
Of herbs, and other country messes, 
Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses ; 
And then in haste her bower she leaves 
With Thestylis to bind the sheaves ; 
Or, if the earlier season lead, 
To the tann'd haycock in the mead. 

Sometimes, with secure delight, 
The upland hamlets will invite, 

When the merry bells ring round, 

And the jocund rebecks sound 

To many a youth and many a maid, 

Dancing in the chequer d shade ; 

And young and old come forth to play 

On a sunshine holiday, 

Till the live-long day-light fail. 

Then to the spicy nut-brown ale, 

With stories told of many a feat, 

How faery Mab the junkets eat ; 

She was pinch'd, and pull'd, she said, 

And he, by friars' lantern led ; 

Tells how the drudging Goblin sweat, 

To earn his cream-bowl duly set, 

When in one night, ere glimpse of morn, 

His shadowy flail had thrash'd the corn, 

That ten day-labourers could not end ; 

Then lies him down the lubber fiend, 

And stretch'd out all the chimney's length 

Basks at the fire his hairy strength ; 



224 MILTON. 



And crop-full out of doors he flings, 

Ere the first cock his matin rings. 

Thus done the tales, to bed they creep, 

By whispering ivinds soon lull'd asleep. 

Tower' d cities please us then, 

And the busy hum of men, 

Where throngs of knights and barons bold, 

In weeds of peace, high triumphs hold, 

With store of ladies, whose bright eyes 

Rain influence, ( 6 ) and judge the prize 

Of wit, or arms, while both contend 

To win her grace, whom all commend. 

There let Hymen oft appear 

In saffron robe, with taper clear ; 

And pomp, and feast, and revelry, 

With masque and antique pageantry ; 

Such sights as youthful poets dream 

On summer eves by haunted stream. 

Then to the well-trod stage anon, 

If Jonson's learned sock be on, ( 7 ) 

Or sweetest Shakspeare, Fancy's child, 

Warble his native wood-notes wild. 

And ever against eating cares, 

Lap me in soft Lydian airs, 

Married to immortal verse, 

Such as the meeting soul may pierce, 

In notes with many a winding bout 

Of United sweetness long drawn out, 

With wanton heed and giddy cunning, 

The melting voice through mazes running, 

Untwisting all the chains that tie 

The hidden soul of harmony ; 

That Orpheus' self may heave his head 

From golden slumbers on a bed 

Of heaped Ely sian flowers and hear 

Such strains as would have won the ear 

Of Pluto, to have quite set free 

His half regain d Eurydice. 

These delights if thou canst give, 

Mirth, with thee I mean to live. 



MILTON. 225 

Milton shows his early fondness for the Italian 
language, by taking from it the titles of these poems. 
V Allegro is the mirthful (man), and II Penseroso the 
melancholy (pensive rather, or thoughtful). These two 
poems are supposed, with good reason, to have been 
written at Horton in Buckinghamshire, where his parents 
were residing at the time of their composition. I mention 
this circumstance, first because it is pleasant to know when 
poetry is written in poetical places, and next for the sake 
of such readers as may happen to know the spot. 



(') (Some sager sing.) 

Ben Jonson, in one of his Masks. " Because," says 
Warburton, "those who give to Mirth such gross com- 
panions as Eating and Drinking, are the less sage mytho- 
logists." 

( 2 ) Quips and Cranks, and wanton Wiles. 
What a Crank is, the commentators are puzzled to 
say. They guess, from analogy with " winding turns " 
(which the word originally appears to signify), that the 
poet means cross purposes, or some other such pastime. 
The witty author of Hints to a Young Reviewer (after- 
wards, I believe, no mean reviewer himself), who criticised 
these poems upon the pleasant assumption of their having 
"just come out," and expressed his astonishment at " Mr, 
Milton's amatory notions" (I quote from memory), takes 
occasion, from the obscurity of this word, to observe that 
the "phenomenon of a tripping crank" would be very 

15 



226 MILTON. 

curious, and " doubtless attract numerous spectators.** 

He also, in references to passages a little further on, 

wonders how " Mirth can be requested to come and go 

at the same instant ; " and protests at the confident 

immorality of the "young gentleman who takes himself 

for a poet," in proposing to live with Mirth and Liberty 

both together. 

To live with her, and live with thee, 
In unreproved pleasures free. 

How delightful is wit, when bantering in behalf of 
excellence ! 

( 3 ) Through the sweetbrier, &c. 
* Sweetbrier and eglantine," says "Warton, "are the 
same plant : by the twisted eglantine he therefore means 
the honeysuckle : all three are plants often growing against 
the side or walls of a house." This is true ; yet the 
deduction is hardly certain. The same name sometimes 
means different flowers, in different counties ; as may be 
seen from passages in Shakspeare. Eglantine, however, 
is the French word for the flower of the sweetbrier 
(eglantier) ; and hence it came to mean, in English, the 
brier itself. Perhaps, if Milton had been asked why he 
used it in this place, he would have made Johnson's noble 
answer to the lady, when she inquired why he defined 
pastern, in his Dictionary, to be a horse's knee; — 
" Ignorance, madam, ignorance." Poets are often fonder 
of flowers than learned in their names ; and Milton, like 
his illustrious brethren, Chaucer and Spenser, was born 
within the sound of Bow bell. 



MILTON. 



227 



( 4 ) And every s7iej>7ierd tells 7ris tale. 

It used to be thought, till Mr. Headley informed 
Warton otherwise, that telling his tale meant telling a love- 
tale, or story. The correction of this fancy is now admitted ; 
namely, that tale is a technical word for numbering sheep, 
and is so used by several poets, — Dryden for one. 
Warton, like a proper Arcadian, was loth to give up the 
fancy ; but he afterwards found the new interpretation to 
be much the better one. Every shepherd telling his story 
or love-tale, under a hawthorn, at one and the same 
instant, all over a district, would resemble indeed those 
pastoral groups upon bed-curtains, in which, and in no 
other place, such marvels are to be met with. Yet, in 
common perhaps with most young readers, I remember the 
time when I believed it, and was as sorry as Warton to be 
undeceived. 

( 5 ) T7ie cynosure of neighbouring eyes. 

Cynosure (dog's-tail) for load-star, must have been a 
term a little hazardous, as w,ell as over-learned, when it 
first appeared ; though Milton, thinking of the nymph who 
was changed into the star so called (since known as Ursa 
minor), was probably of opinion that it gave his image a 
peculiar fitness and beauty. That enjoying and truly 
poetical commentator, Thomas Warton, quotes a passage 
from Browne's Britannia's Pastorals, that may have been 
in Milton's recollection : — 

Yond palace, whose pale turret-tops 
Over the stately wood survey the copse ; 



228 MILTON. 

and then he indulges in pleasing memories of the old style 
of building, and in regrets for the new, which was less 
picturesque and less given to concealment. " This was 
the great mansion-house," says he, " in Milton's early 
days. With respect to their rural residences, there was a 
coyness in our Gothic ancestors. Modern seats are seldom 
so deeply ambushed." Warton would have been pleased 
at the present revival of the old taste, which indeed is far 
superior to the bald and barrack-like insipidities of his 
day ; though as to the leafy accessories, I am afraid the 
poetic pleasure of living " embosom'd " in trees is not 
thought the most conducive to health. 

( 6 ) Rain influence. 

Da begli occhi un piacer si caldo piove. 

Such fervent pleasure rains from lier sweet eyes. 

— Petrarch, Son. cxxxi. 

( 7 ) Jonsons learned socle. 

"Milton has more frequently and openly copied the 
plays of Beaumont and Fletcher than of Shakspeare. One 
is therefore surprised, that in his panegyric on the stage 
he did not mention the twin bards, when he celebrated 
the learned sock of Jonson and the wood-notes wild of 
Shakspeare. But he concealed his love." — Warton. 

Perhaps he was afraid of avowing it, on account of the 
licence of tneir muse. 



MILTON. 229 



IL PENSEROSO. 

Hence, vain deluding Joys, 

The brood of Folly without Father bred ! 

How little you bested, 

Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys ! 

Dwell in some idle brain, 

And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess, 

As thick and numberless 

As the gay motes that people the sunbeams; ( 8 ) 

Or likest hovering dreams, 

The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train. 

But hail, thou Goddess, sage and holy, 

Hail, divinest Melancholy ! 

Whose saintly visage is too bright 

To hit the sense of human sight, 

And therefore, to our weaker view, 

Oerlaid with black, staid Wisdoms hue ; 

Black, but such as in esteem 

Prince Memnon's sister might beseem, ( 9 ) 

Or that starr'd Ethiop queen that strove 

To set her beauty's praise above 

The sea-nymphs, and their powers offended : 

Yet thou art higher far descended : 

Thee bright-haired Vesta, long of yore, 

To solitary Saturn bore ; 

His daughter she ; in Saturn's reign 

Such mixture was not held a stain : 

Oft in glimmering bowers and glades 

He met her, and in secret shades 

Of woody Ida's inmost grove, 

"Whilst yet there was no fear of Jove. 

Come, pensive nun, devout and pure, 

Sober, stedfast, and demure, 

All in a robe of darkest grain, 

flowing with majestic train, 



W 



230 MILTON. 



And sable stole of Cypress lawn 

Over thy decent shoulders drawn. 

Come, but keep thy wonted state, 

"With even step and musing gait, 

And looks commercing with the sides, 

Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes ; 

There held in holy passion still, 

Forget thyself to marble, till, 

With a sad leaden downward cast, 

Thou fix them on the earth as fast. — 

And join with thee calm Peace and Quiet, 

Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet, 

And hears the Muses in a ring 

Aye round about Jove's altar sing : 

And add to these retired Leisure, 

That in trim gardens takes his pleasure : 

But first, and chiefest, with thee bring 

Him that yon soars on golden wing, 

Guiding the fiery- wheeled throne, 

The cherub Contemplation ; ( 10 ) 

And the mute Silence hist along, 

Less Philomel will deign a song, 

In her sweetest saddest plight, 

Smoothing the rugged brow of night. 

While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke 

Gently o'er the accustom'd oak. 

Sweet bird, that shunnst the noise of folly, 

Most musical, most melancholy ! ( n ) 

Thee, chauntress, oft the woods among 

I woo to hear thy even-song ; 

And missing thee, I walk unseen. 

On the dry smooth-shaven green, 

To behold the wandering moon 

Hiding near her highest noon, 

Like one that hath been led astray C~) 

Through the heavens wide pathless way ; 

And oft, as if her head she boic'd, 

Stooping through a fleecy cloud. 

Oft, on a plot of rising ground, 

I hear the far-off curfew sound 



MILTON. 

Over some wide-water d shore, 

Swinging slow witli sullen roar ; 

Or, if the air will not permit, 

Some still removed place will fit, 

Where glowing embers through the room ( 13 ) 

Teach light to counterfeit a gloom ; 

Far from all resort of mirth, 

Save the cricket on the hearth, 

Or the bellman's drowsy charm, 

To bless the doors from nightly harm. 

Or let my lamp, at midnight hour, 

Be seen in some high lonely tower, ( 14 ) 

Where I may oft out-watch the Bear 

With thrice-great Hermes, or unsphere 

The spirit of Plato, to unfold 

What worlds, or what vast regions, hold 

The immortal mind, that hath forsook 

Her mansion in this fleshly nook : 

And of those demons that are found 

In fire, air, flood, or under ground, 

Whose power hath a true consent 

With planet or with element. 

Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy 

In sceptred pall come sweeping by, 

Presenting Thebes or Pelops' line, 

Or the tale of Troy divine ; 

Or what (though rare) of later age 

Ennobled hath the busldn'd stage. 

But 0, sad virgin, that thy power 

Might raise Mussbus from his bower ! 

Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing 

Such notes as, warbled to the string, 

Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek, 

And made Hell grant what love did seek ! 

Or call up him that left half told ( ,5 j 

The story of Cambuscan bold, 

Of Camball, and of Algarsife, 

And who had Canace to wife, 

That own'd the virtuous ring and glass ; 

And of the wondrous horse of brass, 



231 



232 MILTON. 



On which, the Tartar Mng did ride : 

And if aught else great bards beside 

In sage and solemn tunes have sung, 

Of tumeys and of trophies hung. 

Of forests and enchantments drear, 

Where more is meant than meets the ear. 

Thus, Night, oft see me in thy pale career, 

Till civil- suited morn appear ; 

Not trick' d and flounc'd as she was wont 

"With the Attic boy to hunt, 

But kercheft in a comely cloud, 

While rocking winds are piping loud, 

Or usher d with a shower still 

When the gust hath blown his fill, 

Ending on the rustling leaves 

With minute-drops from off the eaves ; 

And when the sun begins to fling 

His flaring beams, me, Goddess, bring 

To arched walks of twilight groves, 

And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves, 

Of pine, or monumental oak, 

Where the rude axe, with heaved stroke, 

Was never heard the nymphs to daunt, 

Or fright them from their halloivd haunt. 

There in close covert by some brook, 

"Where no profaner eye may look, 

Hide me from day's garish eye, 

While the bee with honied thigh, 

That at her flowery work doth sing, 

And the waters murmuring, 

With such consort as they keep, 

Entice the dewy -feather d Sleep ; 

And let some strange mysterious dream 

Wave at his wings in any stream 

Of lively portraiture display'd, 

Softly on my eyelids laid ; 

And, as I wake, sweet music breathe 

Above, about, or underneath, 

Sent by some spirit to mortals good, 

Or the unseen Genius of the wood, 



MILTON. 233 

But let iny due feet never fail 

To walk the studious cloisters pale, 

And love the high embowed roof, 

With antick pillars, massy proof, 

And storied windows richly dight, 

Casting a dim religious light : 

There let the pealing organ bloiv 

To the full-void 'd quire below ; 

In service high and anthems clear, 

As may with sweetness, through mine ear, 

Dissolve me into ecstacies, 

And bring all heaven before mine eyes. 

And may at last my weary age 
Find out the peaceful hermitage, 
The hairy gown and mossy cell, 
Where I may sit and rightly spell 
Of every star that heaven doth shew, 
And every herb that sips the dew ; 
Till old experience do attain 
To something like prophetic strain. 

These pleasures, Melancholy, give, 
And I with thee will choose to live. 

He puts the Pmiscroso last, as a climax ; because he 
prefers the pensive mood to the mirthful. I do not know 
why he spells the word in this manner. I have never seen 
it without the i } — Pensieroso, In Florio's Dictionary the 
ie varies into an o, — Pensoroso ; whence apparently the 
abbreviated form, — Pensoso. 

( 8 j As thick as motes in the sunne beams. — Chaucee. 

But see how by one word, people, a great poet improves 
what he borrows. 



234 MILTON. 

( 9 ) Prince Memnoris sister. 
It does not appear, by the ancient authors, that 
Meinnon had a sister ; but Milton wished him to have 
one ; so here she is. It has been idly objected to Spenser, 
who dealt much in this kind of creation, that he had no 
right to add to persons and circumstances in old mytho- 
logy. As if the same poetry which saw what it did might 
not see more ! 

( 10 ) The clierub Contemplation. 

Learnedly called cherub, not seraph ; because the 
cherubs were the angels of knowledge, the seraphs of love. 
In the celestial hierarchy, by a noble sentiment, the seraphs 
rank higher than the cherubs. 

(") Most musical, most melancholy. 
A question has been started of late years, whether the 
song of the nightingale is really melancholy ; whether it 
ought not rather to be called merry, as, in fact, Chaucer 
does call it. But merry, in Chaucer's time, did not mean 
solely what it does now ; but any kind of hasty or strenu- 
ous prevalence, as " merry men,'" meaning men in their 
heartiest and manliest condition. He speaks even of the 
" merry organ," meaning the church organ — the " merry 
organ of the mass." Coleridge, in some beautiful lines, 
thought fit to take the merry side, out of a notion, real 
or supposed, of the necessity of vindicating nature from 
sadness. But the question is surely very simple, — one of 
pure association of ideas. The nightingale's song is not 
in itself melancholv, that is, no result of sadness on the 



MILTON. 235 

part of the bird ; but coming, as it does, in the night- 
time, and making us reflect, and reminding us by its very 
beauty of the mystery and fleetingness of all sweet things, 
it becomes melancholy in the finer sense of the word, by 
the combined overshadowing of the hour and of thought. 

• 
( 12 ) Like one that hath been led astray. 

This calls to mind a beautiful passage about the moon, 

in Spenser's Epithalamium : — 

Who is the same that at my window peeps ? 
Or who is that fair face that shines so bright ? 
Is it not Cynthia, she that never sleeps, 
But walks about high heaven all the night ? 

( 13 ) Where glowing embers. 
Here, also, the reader is reminded of Spenser. — See 
p. 114:— 

A little glooming light, much like a shade. 

( 14 j Or let my lamp, at midnight hour, 
Be seen. 

The picturesque of the " be seen " has been much 
admired. Its good-nature seems to deserve no less appro- 
bation. The light is seen afar by the traveller, giving him 
a sense of home comfort, and perhaps helping to guide 
his way. 

( ,5 ) Call up him that left half told 
The story of Gambusean bold. 

Chaucer, with his Squire's Tale. But why did Milton 
turn Cambuscan, that is, Cambus the Khan, into Cam- 
biiscan ? The accent in Chaucer is never thrown on the 
middle syllable. 



236 MILTON. 



LYCIDAS. 
The poet bewails the death of his young friend and 
fellow-student, Edward King, of Christ's College, Cam- 
bridge, who was drowned at sea, on his way to visit his 
friends in Ireland. The vessel, which was in bad condi- 
tion, went suddenly to the bottom, in calm weather, not 
far from the English coast ; and all on board perished. 
Milton was then in his twenty-ninth year, and his friend 
in his twenty-fifth. The poem, with good reason, is 
supposed to have been written, like the preceding ones, at 
Horton, in Buckinghamshire : — 

Yet once more, ye laurels, and once more, 
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere, 
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, 
And with forc'd fingers rude 
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. 
Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear, 
Compels me to disturb your season due : 
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime, 
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer. 
Who would not sing for Lycidas ? he knew 
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme. 
He must not float upon his watery bier 
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind, 
Without the meed of some melodious tear. ( w ) 

Begin, then, sisters of the sacred well, 
That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring, 
Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string. ( I7 ) 
Hence with denial vain, and coy excuse, 
So may some gentle Muse 
With lucky words favour my destin'd urn, 
And, as he passes, turn, 
And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud. 

For we were nurst upon the self-same hill, 
Fed the same flock by fountain, shade, and rill : 



MILTON. 237 

Together both, e'er the high lawns appear'd 

Under the opening eyelids of the Morn, 

We drove a-field, arid both together heard 

What tune the grey-fly winds her sultry horn, 

Batt'ning our flocks with the fresh dews of night 

Oft till the star, that rose, at evening, bright, 

Tow'rd heav'n's descent had slop'd his west'ring wheel. 

Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute, 

Temper' d to the oaten flute ; 

Rough Satyrs danc'd ; and Fauns with cloven heel 

From the glad sound would not be absent long, 

And old Damsetas lov'd to hear our song. 

But, O the heavy change, now thou art gone, 
Noiv thou art gone, and never must return ! 
Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods and desert caves 
With wild thjme and the gadding vine o'ergrown, 
And all their echoes mourn. 
The willows, and the hazel copses green, 
Shall now no more be seen 
Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays. 
As killing as the canker to the rose, 
Or taint worm to the weanling herds that graze, 
Or frost to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear, 
When first the white thorn blows ; 
Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd's ear. 

Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep 
Closd o'er the head of your lov'd Lycidas ? ( 18 ) 
For neither were ye playing on the steep, 
Where your old bards, the famous Druids, he, 
Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high, 
Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream : ( !9 ) 
Ay me ! I fondly dream, 

Had ye been there — for what could that have done ? 
What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bore, 
The Muse herself, for her enchanting son, 
Whom universal Nature did lament, 
When, by the rout that made the hideous roar, 
His gory visage down the stream was sent, 
Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore ? 



238 MILTON. 

Alas ! what boots it with incessant care 
To tend the homely, slighted, shepherd's trade, 
And strictly meditate the thankless Muse ? 
Were it not better done, as others use, 
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, 
Or with the tangles of Near as hair ? 
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise 
(That last infirmity of nolle mind) 
To scorn delights, and live laborious days ; 
But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, 
And think to burst out into sudden blaze, 
Comes the blind Fury with th' abhorred shears, 
And slits the thin-spun life. — " But not the praise" 
Phoebus reply'd, and touch'd my trembling ears ; 
" Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil. 
Nor in the glistering foil 
Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies, 
But lives, and spreads aloft by those pure eyes, 
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove ; 
As he pronounces lastly on each deed, 
Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed." 

O fountain Arethuse, and thou honour'd flood, 
Smooth-sliding Mincius, crown'd with vocal reeds, 
That strain I heard was of a higher mood : 
But now my oat proceeds, 
And listens to the herald of the sea 
That came in N ex^tune's plea ; 
He ask'd the waves, and ask'd the felon winds, 
"What hard mishap hath doom'd this gentle swain ? 
And question' d every gust of rugged wings 
That blows from off each beaked promontory : 
They knew not of his story ; 
And sage Hippotades their answer brings, 
That not a blast was from Ms dungeon stray 'd ; 
The ah* was calm, and on the level brine 
Sleek Panope -with all her sisters playd. 
It was that fatal and perfidious bark, 
Built in the eclipse, and rigg'd with curses dark, 
That sunk so low that sacred head of thine. 



MILTON. 239 

Next Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow, 
His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge, 
Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge 
Like to that sanguine flower inscrib'd with woe. ( 20 ) 
" Ah ! who hath reft," quoth he, " my dearest pledge ? " 
Last came, and last did go, ( 21 ) 
The pilot of the Galilean lake ; 
Two massy keys he bore of metals twain, 
(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain,) 
He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake : 
" How well could I have spar'd for thee, young swain, (") 
Enow of such, as for their bellies' sake 
Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold ? 
Of other care they little reckoning make, 
Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast, 
And shove away the worthy bidden guest ; 
Blind mouths ! that scarce themselves know how to hold 
A sheep-hook, or have learn'd aught else the least 
That to the faithful herdman's art belongs ! 
What recks it them ? What need they ? They are sped ; 
And, when they list, their lean and flashy songs 
Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw ; 
The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, 
But swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw, 
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread : 
Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw 
Daily devours apace, and nothing said : 
But that two-handed engine at the door 
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more." 

Return, Alpheus, the dread voice is past, ( 23 ) 
That shrunk thy streams ; return, Sicilian Muse, 
And call the vales, and bid them hither cast 
Their bells, and flowerets, of a thousand hues ; 
Ye valleys low, where the mild ivhispers use 
Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks, 
On whose fresh lap the swart-star sparely looks — ■ 
Throw hither all your quaint enamelVd eyes, 
That on the green turf such the honied showers, ( 24 ) 
And purple all the ground with vernal flowers : 
Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies. 



240 MILTON. 

The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine, 

The white pink, and the pansy freak' d with jet, 

The glowing violet, ( 25 ) 

The musk-rose, and the well attir'd woodbine, 

With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head, 

And every flower that sad embroidery wears : 

Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed, 

And daffodillies fill their ciqjs with tears, 

To strew the laureat hearse where Lycicl lies ; 

For, so to interpose a little ease, 

Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise. — 

Ah me ! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas 

Wash far away, where'er thy bones are hurl'd, 

Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides, 

Where thou perhaps, under the whelming tide, 

Visit' st the bottom of the monstrous world; 

Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied, 

Sleep'st by the fable of Bellarus old, 

Where the great vision of the guarded Mount ( 26 ) 

Looks towards Namancos and Bayona's hold ; 

Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth : 

And, O ye dolphins ! waft the hapless youth. 

Weep no more, woful Shepherds, weep no more, 
For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead, 
Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor ; 
So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed, 
And yet anon repairs his drooping head, 
And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore 
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky ; 
So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high, 
Through the dear might of Him that walk'd the leaves 
Where, other groves and other streams along, 
With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves, 
And hears the unexpressive nuptial song 
In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love. 
There entertain him all the saints above, 
In solemn troops and sweet societies, 
That sing, and, singing, in their glory move, 
And -wipe the tears for ever from his eyes. 
Now Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more 



MILTON. 241 

Henceforth thou art the genius of the shore, 
In thy large recompence, and shalt be good 
To all that wander in that perilous flood. 

Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills, 
While the still morn went out with sandals gray ; 
He touch'd the tender stops of various quills, 
With eager thought warbling his Doric lay : 
And now the sun had stretch'd out all the hills, 
And now was dropt into the western bay : 
At last he rose, and twitch'd his mantle blue : 
To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new. 



( 16 ) WitJwut the meed of some melodious tear. 

Catullus uses the word in a like sense, when alluding 

to the elegies of Simonides in his touching expostulation 

with his friend Cornificius, whom he requests to come and 

see him during a time of depression : — 

Paulum quid lubet allocutionis 
Maestius lacrymis Simonideis. 

Prithee a little talk for ease, for ease, 
Sad as the tears of poor Simonides. 

( n ) Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string. 
Hence with denial vain, &c. 

The first of these lines has a poor, prosaic effect, like 
one of the inane mixtures of familiarity and assumed 
importance in the " Pindaric " writers of the age. And 
" hence with denial vain " is a very unnecessary piece of 
harshness towards the poor Muses, who surely were not 
disposed to ill-treat the young poet. 

16 



242 MILTON. 

( 18 ) Closd oer the head, &c. 
The very best image of drowning he could have chosen, 
especially during cairn weather, both as regards sufferer 
and spectator. The combined sensations of darkness, of 
liquid enclosure, and of the final interposition of a heap 
of waters between life and the light of day, are those 
which most absorb the faculties of a drowning person. 
Haud insubmersus loquor. 

( 19 ) Nor yet where Deva spreads lier wizard stream. 
The river Dee, in Spenser's and Drayton's poetry, and 
old British history, is celebrated for its ominous character 
and its magicians. 

( 20 ) Sanguine flow 'r inscribed with ivoe. 
The ancient poetical hyacinth, proved, I think, 'by Pro- 
fessor Martyn, in his Yirgil's Georgics, to be the turk's-cap 
lily, the only flower on which characters like the Greek 
exclamation of woe, AI, AI, are to be found. The 
idea in Milton is from Moschus's Elegy on the Death 
of Bion : — 

Nw, vaKivQt, XaXfi ret oa ypdfifxara, ical irXkov a'i a'L 
3dfJkf3aXe aoTg 7rerdXoi(n. 

Now more than ever say, O hyacinth ! 

" Ai ai," and babble of your written sorrows. 

( 21 ) Last came, and last did go. 
"This passage," says Hazlitt, "which alludes to the 
clerical character of Lycidas, has been found fault with, as 
combining the truths of the Christian religion with the 



MILTON. 243 

fiction of the Heathen mythology. I conceive there is 
very little foundation, for this objection, either in reason 
or good taste. I will not go so far as to defend Camoens, 
■who, in his Lusiad, makes Jupiter send Mercury with a 
dream to propagate the Catholic religion ; nor do I know 
that it is generally proper to introduce the two things in the 
same poem, though I see no objection to it here ; but of this 
I am quite sure, that there is no inconsistency or natural 
repugnance between this poetical and religious faith in the 
same mind. To the understanding, the belief of the one 
is incompatible with that of the other, but, in the imagina- 
tion, they not only may, but do constantly, co-exist. I 
will venture to go farther, and maintain that every classical 
scholar, how r ever orthodox a Christian he may be, is an 
honest Heathen at heart. This requires explanation. 
Whoever, then, attaches a reality to any idea beyond the 
mere name, has to a certain extent (though not an 
abstract) an habitual and practical belief in it. Now, 
to any one familiar with the names of the personages of 
the heathen mythology, they convey a positive identity 
beyond the mere name. We refer them to something out 
of ourselves. It is only by an effort of abstraction that we 
divest ourselves of the idea of their reality ; all our involun- 
tary prejudices are on their side. This is enough for the 
poet. They impose on the imagination by the attractions 
of beauty and grandeur. They come down to us in 
sculpture and in song. We have the same associations 
with them as if they had really been : for the belief of the 
fiction in ancient times has produced all the same effects 
as the reality could have done. It was a reality to the 



244 MILTON. 

minds of the ancient Greeks and Koraans, and through 
them it is reflected to us."— Lectures on the English Poets 
(Templeman's edition), p. 328. 

( 22 ) " Hoiv well could 1 have sjoard" &c. 
" He here animadverts," says Warton, "to the endow- 
ments of the church, at the same time insinuating that 
they were shared hy those only who sought the emolu- 
ments of the sacred office, to the exclusion of a learned 
and conscientious clergy." An old complaint ! Mean- 
time the church has continued mild and peaceful. An 
incalculable blessing ! 

( 23 ) Eetum, Aljplieus, &c. 

How much more sweet and Christian Paganism itself 
sounds, after those threats of religious violence ! The 
" two-handed engine " is supposed to mean the axe pre- 
paring for poor, weak, violent Laud ! Milton was now 
beginning to feel the sectarian influence of his father ; one, 
unfortunately, of a sullen and unpoetical sort. 

( 24 ) Honied slwwers. 
There is an awkwardness of construction between this 
and the preceding line which hurts the beautiful idea of 
the flowers " sucking the honied showers," by seeming 
to attribute the suction to their " eyes." There might, 
indeed, be learned allowance for such an ellipsis ; and we 
hardly know where to find the proper noun substantive or 
predicate for the verb, if it be not so ; but the image is 
terribly spoilt by it. 



MILTON. 245 

( 25 ) Glowing violet. 
Why " glowing ? " The pansy (heart's-ease) " freak'd 
with jet " is exquisite ; equally true to letter and spirit. 

( 26 ) The great Vision of the guarded Mount. 
This is the Archangel Michael, the guardian of seamen, 
sitting on the Mount off the coast of Cornwall known by 
his name, and looking towards the coast of Gallicia. It 
is rather surprising that Milton, with his angelical tenden- 
cies, did not take the opportunity of saying more of him. 
But the line is a grand one. 



COMUS THE SORCERER. 

Thyrsts tells the Brothers of a Lady, that their Sister has fallen 
into the hands of the Sorcerer Comus, dwelling in a wood. 

Within the navel of this hideous wood, 
Immur'd in cypress shades, a sorcerer dwells, 
Of Bacchus and of Circe born, — great Comus, 
Deep skill'd in all his mother's witcheries ; 
And here to every thirsty wanderer 
By sly enticement gives his baneful cup, 
With many murmurs mix'd, whose pleasing poison 
The visage quite transforms of him that drinks, 
And the inglorious likeness of a beast 
Fixes instead, unmoulding reason s mintage 
Character d in the face. This have I learnt, 
Tending my flocks hard by i' the hilly crofts, 
That brow this bottom-glade ; whence, night by night, 
He and his monstrous rout are heard to howl, 
Like stabled wolves, or tigers at their prey. 



246 MILTON. 

Doing abhorred rites to Hecate 

In their obscured haunts of inmost bowers ; 

Yet have they many baits and guileful spells, 

To inveigle and invite the unwary sense 

Of them that pass unweeting by the way. 

This evening late, by then the chewing flocks ( 27 ) 

Had ta'en their supper on the savoury herb 

Of knot-grass dew -besprent, and were in fold, 

I sat me down to watch upon a bank 

With ivy canopied, and interwove 

With flaunting honey-suckle, and began, 

Wrapt in a pleasing fit of melancholy, 

To meditate my rural minstrelsy, 

Till fancy had her fill ; but, ere a close, 

The wonted roar was up amidst the woods, 

And fill'd the air with barbarous dissonance ; 

At which I ceas'd, and listen'd them awhile, 

Till an unusual stop of sudden silence 

Gave respite to the drowsy frighted steeds, 

That draw the litter of close-curtained Sleep ; 

At last a soft and solemn-breathing sound 

Rose like a steam of rich distill 'd perfumes, 

And stole upon the air, that even Silence 

Was took ere she was ware, and wish'd she might 

Deny her nature, and be never more 

Still to be so displacd. I was all ear, 

And took in strains that might create a soul 

Under the ribs of Death : but ! ere long, 

Too well did I perceive it was the voice 

Of my most honour' d lady, your dear sister. 

Amaz'd I stood, harrow'd with grief and fear, 

And, O poor hapless nightingale, thought I, 

How sweet thou sing'st, how near the deadly snare ! 

Then down the lawns I ran with headlong haste, 

Through paths and turnings often trod by day ; 

Till, guided by mine ear, I found the place, 

Where that damn'd wizard, hid in sly disguise, 

(For so by certain signs I knew,) had met 

Already, ere my best speed could prevent, 

The aidless innocent lady, his wish'd prey ; 



MILTON. 

Who gently ask'd if he had seen such two, 
Supposing him some neighbour villager. 
Longer I durst not stay, but soon I guess'd 
Ye were the two she meant ; with that I sprung 
Into swift flight, till I had found you here ; 
But further know I not. 

Sec. Br. O night, and shades ! 

How are ye join'd with hell in triple knot 
Against the unarmed weakness of one virgin, 
Alone and helpless ! Is this the confidence 
You gave me, Brother ? 

Eld. Br. Yes, and keep it still : 

Lean on it safely ; not a period 
Shall be unsaid for me : against the threats 
Of malice, or of sorcery, or that power 
Which erring men call chance, this I hold firm ; — 
Virtue may be assail'd, but never hurt, — 
Surpris'd by unjust force, but not enthrall' d ; 
Yea, even that, which mischief meant most harm, 
Shall in the happy trial prove most glory ; 
But evil on itself shall back recoil, 
And mix no more with goodness ; when at last, 
Gather d like scum, and settled to itself, 
It shall be in eternal restless change, 
Self-fed and self-consumed ; if this fail, 
The pillar d firmament is rottenness, 
And earth's base built on stubble. 



247 



( 27 ) The chewing flocks, &c. 

" Tlie supper of the sheep," says Warton, " is from 

beautiful comparison in Spenser, — 

As gentle shepherd, in sweet eventide, 

When ruddy Phoebus gins to welk (decline) in west, 

High on a hill, his flock to viewen wide, 

Marks which do bite their hasty supper best. 

Faerie Queene, i. s. 23." 



248 MILTON. 

" Chewing flocks " is good, but not equal to " biting their 
hasty supper." It is hardly dramatical, too, in the speaker 
to stop to notice the sweetness and dewiness of the sheep's 
grass, while he had a story to tell, and one of agitating 
interest to his hearers. 



COLERIDGE. 

BORN, 1773— DIED, 1834. 



Coleridge lived in the most extraordinary and agitated 
period of modern history ; and to a certain extent he was 
so mixed up with its controversies, that he was at one 
time taken for nothing hut an apostate republican, and at 
another for a dreaming theosophist. The truth is, that 
both his politics and theosophy were at the mercy of a 
discursive genius, intellectually bold but educationally 
timid, which, anxious, or rather willing, to bring con- 
viction and speculation together, mooting all points as 
it went, and throwing the subtlest - glancing lights on 
many, ended in satisfying nobody, and concluding nothing. 
Charles Lamb said of him, that he had " the art of making 
the unintelligible appear intelligible." He was the finest 
dreamer, the most eloquent talker, and the most original 
thinker of his day ; but for want of complexional energy, 
did nothing with all the vast prose part of his mind but 
help the Germans to give a subtler tone to criticism, and 
sow a few valuable seeds of thought in minds worthy to 



250 COLERIDGE. 

receive them. Nine-tenths of his theology would apply- 
equally well to their own creeds in the mouths of a 
Brahmin or a Mussulman. 

His poetry is another matter. It is so beautiful, and 
was so quietly content with its beauty, making no call on 
the critics, and receiving hardly any notice, that people are 
but now beginning to awake to a full sense of its merits. 
Of pure poetry, strictly so called, that is to say, consisting 
of nothing but its essential self, without conventional and 
perishing helps, he was the greatest master of his time. 
If you could see it in a phial, like a distillation of roses 
(taking it, I mean, at its best), it would be found without 
a speck. The poet is happy with so good a gift, and the 
reader is " happy in his happiness." Yet so little, some- 
times, are a man's contemporaries and personal acquaint- 
ances able or disposed to estimate him properly, that while 
Coleridge, unlike Shakspeare, lavished praises on his poetic 
friends, he had all the merit of the generosity to himself; 
and even Hazlitt, owing perhaps to causes of political 
alienation, could see nothing to admire in the exquisite 
poem of Christabel, but the description of the quarrel 
between the friends ! After speaking, too, of the Ancient 
Mariner as the only one of his poems that he could point 
out to any one as giving an adequate idea of his great 
natural powers, he adds, "It is High German, however, 
and in it he seems to conceive of poetry but as a drunken 
dream, reckless, careless, and heedless of past, present, 
and to come." This is said of a poem, with which fault 
has been found for the exceeding conscientiousness of its 
moral ! ye critics, the best of ye, what havoc does 



COLERIDGE. 251 

personal difference play with your judgments ! It was not 
Mr. Hazlitt's only or most unwarrantable censure, or one 
which friendship found hardest to forgive. But peace, and 
honour too, be with his memory ! If he was a splenetic 
and sometimes jealous man, he was a disinterested poli- 
tician and an admirable critic : and lucky were those 
whose natures gave them the right and the power to 
pardon him. 

Coleridge, though a born poet, was in his style and 
general musical feeling the disciple partly of Spenser, and 
partly of the fine old English ballad-writers in the collec- 
tion of Bishop Percy. But if he could not improve on 
them in some things, how he did in others, especially in 
the art of being thoroughly musical ! Of all our writers of 
the briefer narrative poetry, Coleridge is the finest since 
Chaucer ; and assuredly he is the sweetest of all our poets. 
Waller's music is but a court-flourish in comparison ; and 
though Beaumont and Fletcher, Collins, Gray, Keats, 
Shelley, and others, have several as sweet passages, and 
Spenser is in a certain sense musical throughout, yet no 
man has written whole poem's, of equal length, so perfect 
in the sentiment of music, so varied with it, and yet 
leaving on the ear so unbroken and single an effect. 

A damsel with a dulcimer 

In a vision once I saw ; 
It was an Abyssinian maid, 
And on her dulcimer she playd, 

Singing of Mount Abora. 

That is but one note of a music ever sweet, yet never 
cloying. 



252 COLEEIDGE. 

It ceas'd ; yet still the sails made on 

A pleasant noise till noon — 
A noise like of a hidden brook 

In the leafy month of June, 
That to the sleeping woods all night 

Singeth a, quiet tune. 

The stanzas of the poem from which this extract is 
made (The Ancient Mariner) generally consist of four lines 
only ; but see how the " brook " has carried him on with it 
through the silence of the night. 

I have said a good deal of the versification of Christabel, 
in the Essay prefixed to this volume, but I cannot help 
giving a further quotation : — 

It was a lovely sight to see 
The lady Christabel, when she 
Was praying at the old oak tree. 

J mid the jagged shadows 
Of mossy leafless boughs, 

Kneeling in the moonlight 
To make her gentle vows ; 
Her slender palms together press'd, 
Heaving sometimes on her breast ; 
Her face resigned to bliss or bale — 
Her face, call it fair, not pale ! 
And both blue eyes more bright than clear, 
Each about to have a tear. 

All the weeping eyes of Guido were nothing to that. 
But I shall be quoting the whole poem. I wish I could ; 
but I fear to trespass upon the bookseller's property. 
One more passage, however, I cannot resist. The good 
Christabel has been undergoing a trance in the arms of the 
wicked witch Geraldine : — 



COLERIDGE. 253 

A star hath set, a star hatli risen, 
O Geraldine ! since arms of thine 

Have been the lovely lady's prison. 
Geraldine ! one hour was thine — 

Thou hast thy will ! By tarn and rill 

The night-birds all that hour were still, 

[An appalling fancy) 

But now they axe jubilant anew, 

From cliff and tower tu-whoo ! tu-whoo ! 

Tu-whoo ! tu-whoo ! from wood and fell. 

And see ! the lady Christabel 

(This, observe, begins a new paragraph, with a break 
the rhyme) 

Gathers herself from out her trance ; 
Her Hmbs relax, her countenance 
Grows sad and soft ; the smooth thin lids 
Close o'er her eyes ; and tears she sheds — 
Large tears that leave the lashes bright ! 
And oft the while she seems to smile, 
As infants at a sudden light. 

Yea, she doth smile, and she doth weep, 
Like a youthful hermitess 
Beauteous in a wilderness, 
Wlio praying always, prays in sleep. 
And, if she move unquietly, 
Perchance 't is but the blood so free 
Comes back and tingles in her feet. 
No doubt she hath a vision sweet : 
What if her guardian spirit 't were ? 
What if she knew her mother near ? 
But this she knows in joys and woes, 
That saints will aid, if men will call, 
For the blue shy bends over all. 

"We see how such a poet obtains his music. Such 
forms of melody can proceed only from the most beautiful 



254 COLEKIDGE. 

inner spirit of sympathy and imagination. He sympa- 
thizes, in his universality, with antipathy itself. If Eegan 
or Goneril had been a young and handsome witch of the 
times of chivalry, and attuned her violence to craft, or 
betrayed it in venomous looks, she could not have beaten 
the soft-voiced, appalling spells, or sudden, snake-eyed 
glances of the Lady Geraldine, — looks which the inno- 
cent Christabel, in her fascination, feels compelled to 
" imitate." 

A snake's small eye blinks dull and shy, 

And the lady's eyes they shrank in her head, 

Each shrank np to a serpent's eye ; 

And with somewhat of malice and more of dread, 

At Christabel she look'd askance. 

* >\< * * * 

The maid devoid of gnile and sin, 
I know not how, in fearful wise, 
So deeply had she drunken in 
That look, those shrunken serpent eyes, 
That all her features were resign'd 
To this sole image in her mind, 
And passively did imitate 
That look of dull and treacherous hate. 

This is as exquisite in its knowledge of the fascinating 
tendencies of fear as it is in its description. And what can 
surpass a line quoted already in the Essay (but I must 
quote it again !) for very perfection of grace and sentiment? 
— the line in the passage where Christabelis going to bed, 
before she is aware that her visitor is a witch. 

Quoth Christabel, — So let it be ! 
And as the lady bade, did she. 
Her gentle limbs did she undress, 
And lay down in her loveliness. 



COLERIDGE. 255 

Oh ! it is too late now ; and habit and self-love 
blinded me at the time, and I did not know (much as I 
admired him) how great a poet lived in that grove at 
Highgate ; or I would have cultivated its walks more, as I 
might have done, and endeavoured to return him, with my 
gratitude, a small portion of the delight his verses have 
given me. 

I must add, that I do not think Coleridge's earlier 
poems at all equal to the rest. Many, indeed, I do not 
care to read a second time ; but there are some ten or a 
dozen, of which I never tire, and which will one day make 
a small and precious volume to put in the pockets of all 
enthusiasts in poetry, and endure with the language. 
Five of these are The Ancient Mariner, Cliristabel, Kubla 
Khan, Genevieve, and Youth and Age. Some, that more 
personally relate to the poet, will be added for the love of 
him, not omitting the Visit of the Gods, from Schiller, 
and the famous passage on the Heathen Mythology, also 
from Schiller. A short life, a portrait, and some other 
engravings perhaps, will complete the book, after the good 
old fashion of Cooke's and Bell's editions of the Poets ; 
and then, like the contents of the Jew of Malta's casket, 
there will be 

Infinite riches in a little room. 



256 COLERIDGE, 



LOVE ; OR, GENEVIEVE. 

All thoughts, all passions, all delights. 

Whatever stirs this mortal frame, 
Are all but ministers of Love, 

And feed his sacred flame. 

Oft in my waking dreams do I 
Live o'er again that happy hour, 

When midway on the mount I lay, 
Beside the ruin'd tower. 

The moonlight stealing o'er the scene 
Had blended with the lights of eve ; 

And she was there, my hope, my joy, 
My own dear Genevieve ! 

She leant against the armed man, 
The statue of the armed knight ; 

She stood and listen'd to my lay, 
Amid the lingering light. 

Few sorrows liath she of her own. 

My hope ! my joy ! my Genevieve I 
She loves me best whene'er I sing 

The songs that make her grieve, 

I play'd a soft and doleful air, 
I sang an old and moving story — 

An old rude song, that suited well 
That ruin -wild and hoary. 

She listen'd with a flitting blush, 
With downcast eyes and modest grace, 

For well she knew I could not choose 
But gaze upon her face. 



COLEBIDGE. 

I told her of the knight that wore 
Upon his shield a burning brand ; 

And that for ten long years he woo'd 
The lady of the land. 

I told her how he pin'd, and — ah ! 

The deep, the low, the pleading tone 
With which I sang another s love, 

Interpreted my own. 

She listened with a flitting blush, 

With downcast eyes and modest grace, 

And she forgave me, that I gaz'd 
Too fondly on her face ! 

But when I told the cruel scorn 

That crazed that bold and lovely knight, 

And that he cross'd the mountain- woods, 
Nor rested day nor night : 

That sometimes from the savage den, 

And sometimes from the darksome shade, 

And sometimes starting up at once 
In green and sunny glade, 

There came and loo¥d him in the face 

An angel beautiful and bright ; 
And that he knew it was a fiend, 

This miserable knight ! 

And that, unknowing what he did, 
He leap'd amid a murderous band, 

And sav'd from outrage worse than death 
The lady of the land ! 

And how she wept and claspt his knees ; 

And how she tended him in vain — 
And ever strove to expiate 

The scorn that crazed his brain ; 

17 



258 COLERIDGE. 

And that she nurs'd him in a cave ; 

And how his madness went away., 
When on the yellow forest leaves 

A dying man he lay. 

His dying words — bnt when I reach'd 
That tenderest strain of all the diti y , 

My faltering voice and pausing harp 
Disturbed her soul with pity. 

All impulses of soul and sense 

Had thrill'd my guileless Genevieve ;. 

The music and the doleful tale, 
The rich and balmy eve ; 

And hopes, and fears that kindle hope. 
An undistinguishdble throng, 

And gentle wishes long subdued, 
Subdued and cherished long. 

She wept with pity and delight, 
She blush' d with love and virgin-shame . 

And like the murmur of a dream, 
I heard her breathe my name. 

Her bosom heav'd — she stept aside, 
As conscious of my look she stept— 

Then suddenly, with timorous eye, 
She fled to me and wept. 

She half enclos'd me in her arms, 

She press'd me with a meek embrace ; 

And bending back her head, looVd up, ' 
And gazed upon my face. 

'Twas partly love and partly fear. 
And partly 'twas a bashful art 

That I might rather feel, than see 
The swelling of her heart. 



COLEBIDGE. 259 

I calm'd her fears, and she was calm, 
And told her love with virgin pride, 

And so I won my Genevieve, 
My own, my beauteous bride ! 

I can hardly say a word upon this poem for very 
admiration. I must observe, however, that one of the 
charms of it consists in the numerous repetitions and 
revolvings of the words, one on the other, as if taking 
delight in their own beauty. 



KUBLA KHAN. 

SUGGESTED TO THE AUTHOR BY A PASSAGE IN PURCHAS's 
PILGRIMAGE. 

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan f 1 ) 

A stately pleasure-dome decree, 
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran, 
Through caverns measureless to man, 

Down to a sunless sea. 

So twice five miles of fertile ground 
With walls and towers were girdled round ; 
And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills, 
Where blossom'd many an incense-bearing tree ; 
And here were forests ancient as the hills, 
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery . 

But oh, that deep romantic chasm which slanted 
Down the qreen hill, athwart a cedarn cover ! 
A savage place ! as holy and enchanted 
As eer beneath a waning moon was haunted 
By woman w ailing for her demon-lover ; 



260 COLERIDGE. 

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, 

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, 

A mighty fountain momently was forc'd ; 

Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst 

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, 

Or chaffy grain beneath the thrasher's flail : 

And mid these dancing rocks, at once and ever 

It flung up momently the sacred river. 

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion, 

Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, 

Then reach'd the caverns measureless to man, 

And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean ; 

And mid this tumult Kubla heard from far 

Ancestral voices prophestjing war. ( 2 ) 

The shadow of the dome of pleasure 

Floated midway on the waves ; 

Where was heard the mingled measure 

From the fountain and the caves. 

It was a miracle of rare device, 

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice ! 

A damsel with a dulcimer 

In a vision once I saw : 

It was an Abyssinian maid, 

And on her dulcimer she play 'd, 

Singing of Mount Abora. 

Could I revive within me 

Her symphony and song, 

To such a deep delight 'twould win me, 

That with music loud and long, 

I would build that dome in air, 

That sunny dome ; those caves of ice ; 

And all who heard should see them there. 

And all should cry, Beware / Beware / 

His flashing eyes, his floating hair ; 

Weave a circle round him thrice, 

And close your eyes with holy dread, 

For he on honey -dew hath fed, 

And drunk the milk of Paradise. 



COLERIDGE. 261 

(') In Xanadu. 

I think I recollect a variation of this stanza, as 

follows :— 

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan 

A stately pleasure-house ordain, 
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran, 
Through caverns measureless to man, 

Down to a sunless main. 

The nice-eared poet probably thought there were too 
many w's in these rhymes ; and man and main are certainly 
not the best neighbours : yet there is such an open- 
sounding and stately intonation in the words pleasure- 
house ordain, and it is so superior to pleasure-dome decree, 
that I am not sure I would not give up the correctness of 
the other terminations to retain it. 

But what a grand flood is this, flowing down through 
measureless caverns to a sea without a sun ! I know no 
other sea equal to it, except Keats' s, in his Ode to a 
Nightingale ; and none can surpass that. 

( 2 ) Ancestral voices* prophesying war. 

Was ever anything more wild, and remote, and 
majestic, than this fiction of the " ancestral voices ? " 
Methinks I hear them, out of the blackness of the past. 



262 COLEEIDGE. 



YOUTH AND AGE. 

Verse, a breeze mid blossoms straying, 
Where hope clung feeding like a bee — 
Both were mine ! Life went a-Maying 
With Nature, Hope, and Poesy, 
When I was young ! 

When I was young ? Ah woful when / 
Ah, for the change 'twixt now and then ! 
This breathing house not built with hands, 
This body that does me grievous wrong, 
O'er aery cliff's and glittering sands, 
How lightly then it flash' d along / — 
Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore, 
On winding lakes and rivers wide 
That ask no aid of sail or oar, 
That fear no spite of wind or tide ! 
Nought cared this body for wind or weather, 
When Youth and I lived in 't together. 

Flowers are lovely ; Love is flower-like ; 
Friendship is a sheltering tree ; 
Oh, the joys that came down shower-like, 
Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty, 

Ere I was old / 
Ere I was old ? Ah woful ere I 
Which tells me Youth's no longer here ! 
O Youth ! for years so many and sweet, 
'T is known, that thou and I were one ; 
I'll think it but a fond deceit — 
It cannot be, that thou art gone ! 
Thy vesper-bell hath not yettoll'd, 
And thou wert aye a masker bold ! 
What strange disguise hast now put on, 
To make believe that thou art gone ? 



COLERIDGE. 263 

7" see these lochs in silvery slips, 
This drooping gait, this alter d size ; 
But springtide blossoms on thy lips, 
And tears talce sunshine from thine eyes / 
Life is but thought ; so think I will, 
That Youth and I are house-mates still. 

This is one of the most perfect poems, for style, 
feeling, and everything, that ever were written. 



THE HEATHEN DIVINITIES MERGED INTO 
ASTROLOGY. 

FROM THE TRANSLATION OF SCHILLER'S PICCOLOMINI. 

— Fable is Love's world, his home, his birthplace : 

Delightedly dwells he 'mong fays and talismans, 

And spirits : and delightedly believes 

Divinities, being himself divine. 

The intelligible forms of ancient poets, 

The fair humanities of old religion, 

The power, the beauty, and the majesty, 

That had her haunts in dale, or piny mountain, 

Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring, 

Or chasms and wat'ry depths ; all these have vanish'd ; 

They live no longer in the faith of reason ; 

But still the heart doth need a language ; still 

Doth the old instinct bring back the old names ; 

And to yon starry world they now are gone, 

Spirits or gods, that used to share this earth 

With man as with their friend ; and to the lover 

Yonder they move ; from yonder visible sky 

Shoot influence down ; and even at this day 

'T is Jupiter who brings whateer is great, 

And Venus who brings everything that 's fair. 



264 



COLERIDGE. 



WORK WITHOUT HOPE. 

LINES COMPOSED 21ST FEBKUARY, 1827. 

All Nature seems at work. Stags leave their lair — 
The bees are stirring — birds are on the wing — 

And Winter, slumbering in the open air, 

Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring / 

And I, the while, the sole unbusy tiling, 

Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing. 

Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow, 

Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow. 

Bloom, O ye amaranths ! bloom for whom ye may ; 

For me ye bloom not ! Glide, rich streams, away ! 

With lips unbrighten'd, wreathless brow, I stroll : 

And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul ? 

Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve, 
And hope without an object cannot live. 

I insert this poem on account of the exquisite imagina- 
tive picture in the third and fourth lines, and the terseness 
and melody of the whole. Here we have a specimen of a 
perfect style, — unsuperfluous, straightforward, suggestive, 
impulsive, and serene. But how the writer of such 
verses could talk of "work without hope," I cannot say. 
What work had he better to do than to write more ? and 
what hope but to write more still, and delight himself and 
the world? But the truth is, his mind was too active 
and self-involved to need the diversion of work; and 
his body, the case that contained it, too sluggish with 
sedentary living to like it ; and so he persuaded himself 
that if his writings did not sell, they were of no use. Are 
we to disrespect these self-delusions in such a man ? No ; 
but to draw from them salutary cautions for ourselves, — 
his inferiors. 



SHELLEY. 

BORN, 1792— DIED, 1822, 



Among the many reasons which his friends had to deplore 
the premature death of this splendid poet and noble- 
hearted man, the greatest was his not being able to repeat, 
to a more attentive public, his own protest, not only 
against some of his earlier effusions (which he did in the 
newspapers), but against all which he had written in a 
wailing and angry, instead of an invariably calm, loving, 
and therefore thoroughly helping spirit. His works, in 
justice to himself, require either to be winnowed from 
what he disliked, or to be read with the remembrance of 
that dislike. He had sensibility almost unique, seemingly 
fitter for a planet of a different sort, or in more final 
condition, than ours : he has said of himself, — so delicate 
was his organization, — that he could 

hardly bear 
The weight of the superincumbent hour ; 

and the impatience which he vented for some years against 
that rough working towards good, called evil, and which 



266 



SHELLEY. 



he carried out into conduct too hasty, subjected one of the 
most naturally pious of men to charges which hurt his 
name, and thwarted his philanthropy. Had he lived, he 
would have done away all mistake on these points, and 
made everybody know him for what he was, — a man 
idolized by his friends, — studious, temperate, of the 
gentlest life and conversation, and willing to have died 
to do the world a service. For my part, I never can 
mention his name without a transport of love and grati- 
tude. I rejoice to have partaken of his cares, and to be 
both suffering and benefiting from him at this moment; 
and whenever I think of a future state, and of the great 
and good Spirit that must pervade it, one of the first 
faces I humbly hope to see there, is that of the kind and 
impassioned man, whose intercourse conferred on me the 
title of the Friend of Shelley. 

The finest poetry of Shelley is so mixed up with moral 
and political speculation, that I found it impossible to give 
more than the following extracts, in accordance with the 
purely poetical design of the present volume. Of the 
poetry of reflection and tragic pathos, he has abundance ; 
but even such fanciful productions as the Sensitive Plant 
and the Witch of Atlas are full of metaphysics, and would 
require a commentary of explanation. The short pieces 
and passages, however, before us, are so beautiful, that 
they may well stand as the representatives of the whole 
powers of his mind in the region of pure poetry. In 
sweetness (and not even there in passages) the Ode to the 
Skylark is inferior only to Coleridge, — in rapturous passion 
to no man. It is like the bird it sings, — enthusiastic, 



SHELLEY. 267 

enchanting, profuse, continuous, and alone, — small, but 
filling the heavens. One of the triumphs of poetry is to 
associate its remembrance with the beauties of nature. 
There are probably no lovers of Homer and Shakspeare, 
who, when looking at the moon, do not often call to mind 
the descriptions in the eighth book of the Iliad and the 
fifth act of the Merchant of Venice. The nightingale 
(in England) may be said to have belonged exclusively to 
Milton (see page 230), till a dying young poet of our own 
day partook of the honour by the production of his 
exquisite ode : and notwithstanding Shakspeare's lark 
singing "at heaven's gate," the longer effusion of Shelley 
will be identified with thoughts of the bird hereafter, 
in the minds of all who are susceptible of its beauty. 
What a pity he did not live to produce a hundred such ! or 
to mingle briefer lyrics, as beautiful as Shakspeare's, with 
tragedies which Shakspeare himself might have welcomed ! 
for assuredly, had he lived, he would have been the 
greatest dramatic writer since the days of Elizabeth, if 
indeed he has not abundantly proved himself such in his 
tragedy of the Cenci, Unfortunately, in his indignation 
against every conceivable form of oppression, he took a 
subject for that play too much resembling one which 
Shakspeare had taken in his youth, and still more unsuit- 
able to the stage ; otherwise, besides grandeur and terror, 
there are things in it lovely as heart can worship ; and the 
author showed himself able to draw both men and women, 
whose names would have become "familiar in our mouths 
as household words." The utmost might of gentleness, 
and of the sweet habitudes of domestic affection, was 



268 SHELLEY. 

never more balmily impressed through the tears of the 
reader, than in the unique and divine close of that 
dreadful tragedy. Its loveliness, being that of the 
highest reason, is superior to the madness of all the 
crime that has preceded it, and leaves nature in a state 
of reconcilement with her ordinary course. The daughter, 
who is going forth with her mother to execution, utters 
these final words : — 

Give yourself no unnecessary pain, 
My dear Lord Cardinal. Here, mother, tie 
My girdle for me, and bind up this hair 
In any simple knot. Ay, that does well ; 
And yours, I see, is coming down. How often 
Have we done this for one another ! now 
We shall not do it any more. My Lord, 
We are quite ready. Well, — '£ is very well. 

The force of simplicity and moral sweetness cannot go 
further than this. But in general, if Coleridge is the 
sweetest of our poets, Shelley is at once the most ethereal 
and most gorgeous ; the one who has clothed his thoughts 
in draperies of the most evanescent and most magnificent 
words and imagery. Not Milton himself is more learned 
in Grecisms, or nicer in etymological propriety ; and 
nobody, throughout, has a style so Orphic and primaeval. 
His poetry is as full of mountains, seas, and skies, of light, 
and darkness, and the seasons, and all the elements of our 
being, as if Nature herself had written it, with the creation 
and its hopes newly cast around her ; not, it must be con- 
fessed, without too indiscriminate a mixture of great and 
small, and a want of sufficient shade, — a certain chaotic 



SHELLEY. 269 

brilliancy, "dark with excess of light." Shelley (in the 
verses to a Lady with a Guitar) might well call himself 
Ariel. All the more enjoying part of his poetry is Ariel, — 
,the " delicate" yet powerful " spirit," jealous of restraint, 
yet able to serve ; living in the elements and the flowers ; 
treading the " ooze of the salt deep," and running " on 
the sharp wind of the north ; " feeling for creatures unlike 
himself; " flaming amazement " on them too, and singing 
exquisitest songs. Alas ! and he suffered for years, as 
Ariel did in the cloven pine : but now he is out of it, and 
serving the purposes of Beneficence with a calmness be- 
fitting his knowledge and his love. 



TO A SKYLARK. 



Hail to thee, blithe spirit ! 

Bird thou never wert, 
That from heaven, or near it, 

Pourest thy full heart 
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. (') 



Higher still and higher 

From the earth thou springest ; 
Like a cloud of fire, 

The blue deep thou wingest, 
And singing, still dost soar ; and soaring, ever singest. 



270 



SHELLEY, 



In the golden lightning 

Of the sunken sun, 
O'er which clouds are brightening, 
Thou dost float and run; 
Like an embodied jog, whose race has just begun. 

IV. 

The pale purple even 

Melts round thy flight ; 
Like a star of heaven 
In the broad daylight, 
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight, 

v. 

Keen as are the arrows 
Of that silver sphere 
Whose intense lamp narrows 
In the white dawn clear, 
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. 

VI. 

All the earth and air 

"With thy voice is loud, 
As, when night is bare, 

From one lonely cloud 
The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflow'd. 

VII. 

What thou art, we know not. 

What is most like thee ? 
From rainbow clouds there flow not 

Drops so bright to see, 
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. 



Like a poet hidden 

In the light of thought, 
Singing hymns unbidden, 

Till the world is wrought 
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not. 



SHELLEY. 271 

IX. 
Like a high-born maiden ( 2 ) 

In a palace tower, 
Soothing her love-laden 
Soul in secret hour 
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower. 



Like a glow-worm golden 

In a dell of dew, 
Scattering unbeholden 

Its aerial hue 
Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view. 

XI. 

Like a rose embowered 

In its own green leaves, 
By warm winds deflowered 
Till the scent it gives 
Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy -winged thieves. 

XII. 

Sound of vernal showers 

On the twinkling grass, 
Rain -awakened flowers, 

All that ever was 
Joyous, and clear, andfreSh, thy music doth sur.pass. 

XIIT. 

Teach me, sprite or bird, 

What sweet thoughts are thine : 
I have never heard 

Praise of love or wine 
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. 

xiv. 
Chorus hymeneal, 

Or triumphal chaunt, 
Match'd with thine would be all 
But an empty vaunt — 
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. 



272 SHELLED. 

xv. 
What objects are the fountains 

Of thy happy strain ? 
What fields, or waves, or mountains, 
What shapes of shy or plain ? 
What love of thine own kind ? What ignorance of pain ? 

XVI. 

With thy clear keen joyance 

Languor cannot be : 
Shadow of annoyance 
Never came near thee : 
Thou lovest ; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety. 

XVII. 

Waking or asleep, 

Thou of death must deem 
Tilings more true and deep 
Than we mortals dream, 
Or how could thy note flow in such a crystal stream? 



We look before and after, 

And pine for what is not ; 
Our sincerest laughter 

With some pain is fraught ; 
Our sweetest songs are those which tell of saddest thought. 

XIX. 

Yet if we could scorn 

Hate and pride and fear ; 
If we were things born 

Not to shed a tear, 
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near. 

xx. 

Better than all measures 

Of delightful sound, 
Better than all treasures 
That in books are found, 
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground / ( 3 ) 



SHELLEY. 273 



XXI. 



Teach me half the 

That thy brain must hnow . 
Such harmonious madness 
From my lips would flow, 
The world should listen then, as I am listening now. 

"In the spring of 1820/' says Mrs. Shelley, " we 
spent a week or two near Leghorn, borrowing the house of 
some friends, who were absent on a journey to England. 
It was on a beautiful summer evening, while wandering 
among the lanes where myrtle hedges were the bowers of 
the fire -flies, that we heard the carolling of the skylark, 
which inspired one of the most beautiful of his poems." — 
Moxon's edition of 1840, p. 278. 

Shelley chose the measure of this poem with great 
felicity. The earnest hurry of the four short lines, followed 
by the long effusiveness of the Alexandrine, expresses the 
eagerness and continuity of the lark. There is a luxury of 
the latter kind in Shakspeare's song, produced by the 
reduplication of the rhymes :— 

Hark ! hark ! the lark at heaven's gate sings, 

And Phoebus 'gins arise 
His steeds to water at those springs 

On chalic'd flowers that lies ; 
And winking mary-buds begin 

To ope their golden eyes : 
With everything that pretty bin, 

My lady sweet, arise. 

" Chalic'd flowers that lies " is an ungrammatical 
licence in use with the most scholarly writers of the time ; 
and, to say the truth, it was a slovenly one ; though there 

18 



274 ' SHELLEY. 

is all the difference in the world between the licence of 
power and that of poverty. 



(*) In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. 

During the prevalence of the unimaginative and un- 
musical poetry of the last century, it was thought that an 
Alexandrine should always be cut in halves, for the greater 
sweetness ; that is to say, monotony. The truth is, the 
pause may be thrown anywhere, or even entirely omitted, 
as in the unhesitating and characteristic instance before 
us. See also the eighth stanza. The Alexandrines through- 
out the poem evince the nicest musical feeling. 

( 2 ) Like a high-born maiden 
In a palace tower. 

Mark the accents on the word "love-laden," so beauti- 
fully carrying on the stress into the next line — 

Soothing her love-laden 
Soul in secret hour. 

The music of the whole stanza is of the loveliest sweetness ; 
of energy in the midst of softness ; of dulcitude and variety. 
Not a sound of a vowel in the quatrain resembles that of 
another, except in the rhymes ; while the very sameness or 
repetition of the sounds in the Alexandrine intimates the 
revolvement and continuity of the music which the lady is 
playing. Observe, for instance (for nothing is too minute 
to dwell upon in such beauty), the contrast of the % and o 



SHELLEY. 275 

in " high-born ; " the difference of the a in " maiden " 
•from that in "palace; " the strong opposition of maiden to 
tower (making the rhyme more vigorous in proportion to 
the general softness) ; then the new differences in soothing, 
love-laden, soul, and secret, all diverse from one another, 
and from the whole strain ; and finally, the strain itself, 
winding up in the Alexandrine with a cadence of particular 
repetitions, which constitutes nevertheless a new difference 
on that account, and by the prolongation of the tone 

It gives a very echo to the seat 
Where love is throned. 

There is another passage of Shakspeare which it more 
particularly calls to mind ; — the 

Ditties highly penn'd, 
Sung by a fair queen in a summer bower 
With ravishing division to her lute. 

But as Shakspeare was not writing lyrically in this passage, 
nor desirous to fill it with so much love and sentiment, it 
is no irreverence to say thaj; the modern excels it. The 
music is carried on into the first two lines of the next 

stanza : — 

Like a glow-worm golden 
In a dell of dew : 

a melody as happy in its alliteration as in what may be 
termed its counterpoint. And the colouring of this stanza 
is as beautiful as the music. 

( 3 ) Thou scorner of the ground. 
A most noble and emphatic close of the stanza. Not 
that the lark, in any vulgar sense of the word, " scorns " 



276 SHELLEY. 

the ground, for lie dwells upon it : but that, like the poet, 
nobody can take leave of commonplaces with more heavenly 
triumph. 



A GARISH DAY. 

(said by a potent ruffian.) 

The all-beholding sun yet shines ; I hear 
A busy stir of men about the streets ; 
I see the bright sky through the window-panes 
It is a garish, broad, and peering day ; 
Loud, light, suspicious, full of eyes and ears : 
And every little corner, nook, and hole, 
Is penetrated with the insolent light. 
Come, darkness ! 



CONTEMPLATION OF VIOLENCE. 

(by a man not bad.) 

Spare me now. 
I am as one lost in a midnight wood, 
Who dares not ask some harmless passenger 
The path across the wilderness, lest he, 
As my thoughts are, should be a murderer. 



SHELLEY. 277 



A ROCK AND A CHASM. 

I remember, 
Two miles on this side of the fort, the road 
Crosses a deep ravine : 't is rough and narrow, 
And winds with short turns down the precipice ; 
And in its depth there is a mighty rock, 
Which has, from unimaginable years, 
Sustained itself with terror and with toil 
Over a gulf, and with the agony 
With which it clings seems slowly coming down ; 
Even as a wretched soul, hour after hour, 
Clings to the mass of life ; yet clinging leans, 
And, leaning, makes more dark the dread abyss 
In which it fears to fall. Beneath this crag, 
Huge as despair, as if in weariness, 
The melancholy mountain yawns. Below 
You hear, but see not, an impetuous torrent 
Raging among the caverns ; and a bridge 
Crosses the chasm ; and high above these grov^, 
With intersecting trunks, from crag to crag, 
Cedars, and yews, and pines ; whose tangled hair 
Is matted in one solid roof of shade 
By the dark ivy's twine. % At noon-day here 
'Tis twilight, and at sunset blackest night. 



LOVELINESS INEXPRESSIBLE. 

Sweet lamp ! my moth-like muse has burnt its wings ; 

Or, like a dying swan who soars and sings, 

Young Love should teach Time in his own gray style 

All that thou art. Art thou not void of guile ; 

A lovely soul form'd to be blest and bless ? 

A well of seal'd and secret happiness, 



278 SHELLEY. 

Whose waters like blithe light and music are, 
Vanquishing dissonance and gloom ? — a star 
Which moves not in the moving heavens, alone ? 
A smile amid dark frowns ? — a gentle tone 
Amid rude voices ? — a beloved sight ? 
A Solitude, a Eefuge, a Delight ? 
A lute, which those whom love has taught to play, 
Make music on, to soothe the roughest day, 
And lull fond grief asleep ? — a buried treasure ? 
A cradle of young thoughts of wingless pleasure ? 
A violet-shrouded -grave of woe ? I measure 
The world of fancies, seeking one like thee, 
And find — alas ! mine own infirmity. 



EXISTENCE IN SPACE. 

lAfc, like a dome of many-coloured glass, 
Stains the white radiance of eternity. 



DEVOTEDNESS UNREQUIMNG 

One word is too often profaned 

For me to profane it; 
One feeling too falsely disdain d 

For thee to disdain it. 
One hope is too like despair 

For prudence to smother, 
And pity from thee more dear 

Than that from another. 



SHELLEY. 279 



I can give not what men call love ; 

But wilt thou accept not 
The worship the heart lifts above, 

And the Heavens reject not ? 
The desire of the moth for the star : 

Of the night for the morrow ; 
The devotion to something afar 

From the sphere of our sorroiv. 



TO A LADY WITH A GUITAR. 

Ariel to Miranda : — Take 

This slave of music, for the sake 

Of him who is the slave of thee ; 

And teach it all the harmony 

In which thou canst, and only thou, 

Make the delighted spirit glow, 

Till joy denies itself again, 

And, too intense, is turned to pain. 

For by permission and command 

Of thine own Prince Ferdinand, 

Poor Ariel sends tjiis silent token 

Of more than ever can be spoken ; 

Your guardian spirit, Ariel, who 

From life to life must still pursue 

Your happiness, for thus alone 

Can Ariel ever find his own : 

From Prospero's enchanted cell, 

As the mighty verses tell, 

To the throne of Naples he 

Lit you o'er the trackless sea, 

Flitting on, your prow oefore, 

Like a living meteor : 

When you die, the silent moon, 

In her interlunar swoon, 

Is not sadder in her cell 

Than deserted Ariel : 



28C SHELLEY. 



When you live again on earth, 

Like an unseen star of birth, 

Ariel guides you o'er the sea 

Of life from your nativity. 

Many changes have been run, 

Since Ferdinand and you begun 

Your course of love, and Ariel still 

Has track' d your steps and serv'd your will. 

Now in humbler, happier lot, 

This is all remembered not ; 

And now, alas ! the poor sprite is 

Imprisoned* for some fault of his 

In a body like a grave. 

From you, he only dares to crave, 

For his service and his sorrow, 

A smile to-day — a song to-morrow. 

The artist who this idol wrought, 

To echo all harmonious thought, 

Fell'd a tree, while on the steep 

The woods were in their winter sleep, 

RocJc'd in that repose divine 

On the wind-swept Apennine : 

And dreaming, some of autumn past, 

And some of spring approaching fast, 

And some of April buds and showers, 

And some of songs in July bowers, 

And all of love ; and so this tree — 

O that such our death may be ! — 

Died in sleep, and felt no pain, 

To live in happier form again : 

From which, beneath Heaven's fairest star, 

The artist wrought this lov'd Guitar, 

And taught it justly to reply 

To all who question skilfully, 

In language gentle as thine own ; 

Whispering in enamour'd tone 

Sweet oracles of woods and dells, 

And summer winds in sylvan cells ; 

For it had learnt all harmonies 

Of the plains and of the skies, 



SHELLEY. 281 

Of the forest and the mountains, 
And the many -voiced fountains, 
The clearest echoes of the hills, 
The softest notes of falling rills, 
The melodies of birds and bees, 
The murmuring of summer seas, 
And pattering rain, and breathing dew, 
And airs of evening ; and it knew 
That seldom-heard mysterious sound, 
Which, driv'n on its diurnal round, 
As it floats through boundless day, 
Our world enkindles on its way : — 
All this it knows, but will not tell 
To those who cannot question well 
The spirit that inhabits it ; 
It talks according to the wit 
Of its companions ; and no more 
Is heard than has been felt before, 
By those who tempt it to betray 
These secrets of an elder day. 
But, sweetly as its answers will 
Flatter hands of perfect skill, 
It keeps its highest, holiest tone 
For our beloved friend alone. 

This is a Catullian melody of the first water. The 
transformation of the dreaming wood of the tree into a 
guitar was probably suggested by Catullus's Dedication of 
the Galley, — a poem with which I know he was conversant, 
and which was particularly calculated to please him ; for 
it records the consecration of a favourite old sea-boat to 
the Dioscuri. The modern poet's imagination beats the 
ancient ; but Catullus equals him in graceful flow ; and 
there is one very Shelleian passage in the original : — 

Ubi iste, post phaselus, antea fuit 
Comata silva : nam Cytorio in jugo 
Loquente ssepe sibilum ediclit coma. 



282 SHELLEY. 



For of old, what now you see 

A galley, was a leafy tree 

On the Cytorian heights, and there 

Talk'd to the wind with whistling hair. 



MUSIC,' MEMORY, AND LOVE. 



Music, when soft voices die, (*) 
Vibrates in the memory ; 
Odours, when sweet violets sicken, 
Live within the sense they quicken ; 
Rose-leaves, when the rose is dead, 
Are heap'd for the beloved's bed ; 
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone, 
Love itself shall slumber on. 



(*) Music, when soft voices die. 

This song is a great favourite with musicians : and no 
wonder. Beaumont and Fletcher never wrote anything of 
the kind more lovely. 



KEATS. 

BOEN, 1796,— DIED, 1821, 



Keats was born a poet of the most poetical kind. All his 
feelings came to him through a poetical medium, or were 
speedily coloured by it. He enjoyed a jest as heartily as 
any one, and sympathized with the lowliest commonplace ; 
but the next minute his thoughts were in a garden of 
enchantment, with nymphs, and fauns, and shapes of 
exalted humanity : 

Elysian beauty, rtfelancholy grace. 

It might be said of him, that he never beheld an oak-tree 
without seeing the Dryad. His fame may now forgive the 
critics who disliked his politics, and did not understand 
his poetry. Repeated editions of him in England, France, 
and America, attest its triumphant survival of all obloquy ; 
and there can be no doubt that he has taken a permanent 
station among the British Poets, of a very high, if not 
thoroughly mature, description. 

Keats's early poetry, indeed, partook plentifully of the 
exuberance of youth ; and even in most of his later, his 



284 



KEATS. 



sensibility, sharpened by mortal illness, tended to a morbid 
excess. His region is " a wilderness of sweets," — flowers 
of all hue, and " weeds of glorious feature," — where, as he 
says, the luxuriant soil brings 

The pipy hemlock to strange overgrowth. 

But there also is the " rain- scented eglantine," and bushes 
of May-flowers, with bees, and myrtle, and bay, — and 
endless paths into forests haunted with the loveliest as well 
as gentlest beings ; and the gods live in the distance, amid 
notes of majestic thunder. I do not say that no " surfeit " 
is ever there ; but I do, that there is no end of the 
" nectared sweets." In what other English poet (however 
superior to him in other respects) are you so certain of 
never opening a page without lighting upon the loveliest 
imagery and the most eloquent expressions ? Name one. 
Compare any succession of their pages at random, and see 
if the young poet is not sure to present his stock of beauty ; 
crude it may be, in many instances ; too indiscriminate in 
general ; never, perhaps, thoroughly perfect in cultivation ; 
but there it is, exquisite of its kind, and filling envy with 
despair. He died at five-and-twenty ; he had not revised 
his earlier works, nor given his genius its last pruning. 
His Endymion, in resolving to be free from all critical 
trammels, had no versification ; and his last noble frag- 
ment, Hyperion, is not faultless, — but it is nearly so. 
The Eve of St. Agnes betrays morbidity only in one 
instance (noticed in the comment). Even in his earliest 
productions, which are to be considered as those of youth 
just emerging from boyhood, are to be found passages of 



KEATS. 285 

as masculine a beauty as ever were written. "Witness the 
Sonnet on reading Chapman's Homer, — epical in the 
splendour and dignity of its images, and terminating with 
the noblest Greek simplicity. Among his finished pro- 
ductions, however, of any length, the Eve of Saint Agnes 
still appears to me the most delightful and complete 
specimen of his genius. It stands mid- way between his 
most sensitive ones (which, though of rare beauty, occa- 
sionally sink into feebleness) and the less generally 
characteristic majesty of the fragment of Hyperion. 
Doubtless his greatest poetry is to be found in Hyperion ; 
and had he lived, there is as little doubt he would have 
written chiefly in that strain; rising superior to those 
languishments of love which made the critics so angry, and 
which they might so easily have pardoned at his time of 
life. But the Eve of St. Agnes had already bid most of 
them adieu, — exquisitely loving as it is. It is young, but 
full-grown poetry of the rarest description ; graceful as the 
beardless Apollo ; glowing and gorgeous with the colours of 
romance. I have therefore reprinted the whole of it in the 
present volume, together with the comment alluded to in 
the Preface ; especially as, in addition to felicity of treat- 
ment, its subject is in every respect a happy one, and helps 
to "paint" this our bower of "poetry with delight." 
Melancholy, it is true, will "break in " when the reader 
thinks of the early death of such a writer ; but it is one of 
the benevolent provisions of nature, that all good things 
tend to pleasure in the recollection ; when the bitterness of 
their loss is past, their own sweetness embalms them. 
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever. 



286 



KEATS. 



While writing this paragraph, a hand-organ out-of- 
doors has been playing one of the monrnfullest and love- 
liest of the airs of Bellini — another genius who died young. 
The sound of music always gives a feeling either of 
triumph or tenderness to the state of mind in which it 
is heard : in this instance it seemed like one departed 
spirit come to bear testimony to another, and to say how 
true indeed may be the union of sorrrowful and sweet 
recollections. 

Keats knew the youthful faults of his poetry as well 
as any man, as the reader may see by the preface to 
Endymion, and its touching though manly acknowledg- 
ment of them to critical candour. I have this moment 
read it again, after a lapse of years, and have been 
astonished to think how anybody could answer such an 
appeal to the mercy of strength, with the cruelty of 
weakness. All the good for which Mr. GifTord pretended to 
be zealous, he might have effected with pain to no one, 
and glory to himself ; and therefore all the evil he mixed 
with it was of his own making. But the secret at the bottom 
of such unprovoked censure is exasperated inferiority. 
Young poets, upon the whole, — at least very young poets, 
— had better not publish at all. They are pretty sure to 
have faults; and jealousy and envy are as sure to find 
them out, and wreak upon them their own disappoint- 
ments. The critic is often an unsuccessful author, almost 
always an inferior one to a man of genius, and possesses 
his sensibility neither to beauty nor to pain. If he does, 
— if by any chance he is a man of genius himself (and 
such things have been), sure and certain will be his 



KEATS. 287 

regret, some day, for having given pains which he might 
have turned into nohle pleasures ; and nothing will console 
him hut that very charity towards himself, the grace of 
which can only he secured to us hy our having denied it 
to no one.* 

Let the student of poetry ohserve, that in all the luxury 
of the Eve of Saint Agnes there is nothing of the con- 
ventional craft of artificial writers ; no heaping up of 
words or similes for their own sakes or the rhyme's sake ; 
no gaudy commonplaces ; no borrowed airs of earnestness ; 
no tricks of inversion ; no substitution of reading or of 
ingenious thoughts for feeling or spontaneity; no irrele- 
vancy or unfitness of any sort. All flows out of sin- 
cerity and passion. The writer is as much in love with 
the heroine as his hero is ; his description of the painted 
window, however gorgeous, has not an untrue or super- 
fluous word ; and the only speck of a fault in the whole 
poem arises from an excess of emotion. 

* Allusion, of course, is not here made to all the critics of the 
time, but only to such reigning reviewers as took earliest and most 
frequent notice of Keats. The Edinburgh Review, though not quick 
to speak of him, did so before he died, with a fervour of eulogy at 
least equal to its objections ; and I think I may add, that its then 
distinguished Editor (who became a revered ornament of the Scottish 
bench) has since felt his admiration of the young poet increase, 
instead of diminish. 



288 KEATS. 



THE EVE OF SAINT AGNES. (») 
i. 

St. Agnes' Eve — Ah ! bitter chill it was ; 
The owl, for all Ms feathers, was a-cold ; ( 2 ) 
The hare limp'd trembling through the frozen grass, 
And silent was the flock in woolly fold ; 
Numb were the beadsman's fingers while he told 
His rosary, and while his frosted breath, 
Like pious incense from a censer old, 
Seem'd taking flight for heaven without a death 
Past the sweet Virgin's picture, while his prayer he saith.( 3 ) 

ii. 

His prayer he saith, this patient, holy man, 
Then takes his lamp, and riseth from his knees, 
And back returneth, meagre, barefoot, wan, 
Along the chapel aisle by slow degrees : 
The sculptur'd dead on each side seem'd to freeze, 
Imprison d in black purgatorial rails : 
Knights, ladies, praying in dumb orat'ries, 
He passeth by ; and his weak spirit fails 
To think how they may ache in icy hoods and mails. ( 4 ) 



Northward he turneth through a little door, 
And scarce three steps, ere music's golden tongue 
Flatter d to tears this aged man and poor : ( s ) 
But no : already had his death-bell rung ; 
The joys of all his life were said and sung : 
His was harsh penance on St. Agnes' Eve : 
Another way he went, and soon among 
Rough ashes sat he, for his soul's reprieve ; 
And all night kept awake, for sinner's sake to grieve. 



KEATS. 289 



That ancient beadsman heard the prelude soft ; 
And so it chanc'd (for many a door was wide, 
From hurry to and fro) soon up aloft 
Hie silver-snarling trumpets 'gan to chide ; 
The level chambers, ready with their pride, 
Were glowing to receive a thousand guests : 
And carved angels, ever eager-eyed, 
Stared, where upon their heads the cornice rests, 
With hair blown back, and wings put cross-wise on their breasts. 

v. 

At length burst in the argent revelry 
With plume, tiara, and all rich array, 
Numerous as shadows haunting fairily 
The brain, new stuff 'd in youth with triumphs gay 
Of old romance. These let us wish away, 
And turn, sole-thoughted, to one lady there, 
Whose heart had brooded all that wintry day 
On love, and wing'd St. Agnes' saintly care, 
As she had heard old dames full many times declare. 



They told her how, upon St. Agnes' Eve, 
Young virgins might have visions of delight ; 
And soft adorings from their loves receive 
Upon the honey d middle of the night, 
If ceremonies due they did aright ; 
As, supperless to bed they must retire, 
And couch supine their beauties, lily white ; 
Nor look behind nor sideways, but require 
Of heaven with upward eyes for all that they desiro. 



Full of this whim was youthful Madeline ; 
The music, yearning, like a god in pain, 
She scarcely heard ; her maiden eyes divine, 
Fix'd on the floor, saw many a sweeping train 

19 



290 KEATS. 

Pass by, she heeded not at all ; in vain 
Came many a tip-toe amorous cavalier, 
And back retired, not cool'd by high disdain, 
But she saw not ; her heart was otherwhere ; 
She sigh'd for Agnes' dreams, the sweetest of the year. 



She danc'd along with vague, regardless eyes, 
Anxious her lips, her breathing quick and short ; 
The hallow'd hour was near at hand ; she sighs 
Amid the timbrels and the throng' d resort 
Of whisperers in anger or in sport ; 
Mid looks of love, defiance, hate, and scorn ; 
Hoodwinltd with faery fancy ; all amort, 
Save to St. Agnes and her lambs unshorn, 
And all the bliss to be before to-morrow morn. 



So, purposing each moment to retire, 
She linger'd still. Meantime across the moors 
Had come young Porphyro, with heart on fire 
For Madeline. Beside the portal doors 
Buttress'd from moonlight, stands he, and implores 
All saints to give him sight of Madeline, 
But for one moment in the tedious hours, 
That he might gaze and worship all unseen, 
Perchance speak, kneel, touch, kiss -; — in sooth such things 
have been. 



He ventures in, let no buzz'd whisper tell ; 
All eyes be muffled, or a hundred swords 
Will storm his heart, Love's feverous citadel. 
For him those chambers held barbarian hordes, 
Hyaena foemen, and hot-blooded lords, 
Whose very dogs would execrations howl 
Against his lineage. Not one breast affords 
Him any mercy, in that mansion foul, 
Save one old beldame, weak in body and in soul. 



KEATS. 291 

XT. 

Ah ! happy chance ! the aged creature came 
Shuffling along with ivory-headed wand, 
To where he stood, hid from the torches' light, 
Behind a broad hall pillar, far beyond 
The sound of merriment and chorus bland. 
He startled her ; but soon she knew his face, 
And grasp'd his fingers in her palsied hand : 
Saying, " Mercy, Porphyro ! hie thee from this place ; 
They are all here to-night, the whole blood-thirsty race. 



" Get hence ! get hence ! there 's dwarfish Hildebrand, 
He had a fever late, and in the fit 
He cursed thee and thine, both house and land : 
Then there 's that old Lord Maurice, not a whit 
More tame for his grey hairs — Alas, me ! flit ; 
Flit like a ghost away." — " Ah, gossip dear, 
We 're safe enough ; here in this arm-chair sit, 
And tell me how — "— " Good saints ! not here ! not here ! 
Follow me, child, or else these stones will be thy bier." 

xiit. 

He follow'd through a lowly, arched way, 
Brushing the cobwebs with his lofty plume ; 
And as she mutter'd, " Well-a-well-a-day ! " 
He found him in a little moonlight room, ( 6 ) 
Pale, latticed, chill, and silent as a tomb. 
" Now tell me where is Madeline," said he; 
" Oh, tell me, Angela, by the holy loom 
Which none but secret sisterhood may see, 
When they St. Agnes' wool are weaving piously." 



" St. Agnes ! Ah ! it is St. Agnes' Eve- 
Yet men will murder upon holidays ; 
Thou must hold water in a witch's sieve, 
And be the liege lord of all elves and fays, 



292 KEATS. 

To venture so : it fills me with amaze 
To see thee, Porphyro ! — St. Agnes' Eve ! 
God's help ! my lady fair the conjuror plays 
This very night : good angels her deceive ! 
But let me laugh awhile ; I 've mickle time to grieve. 



Feebly s7ie lauglietli in the languid moon, 
While Porphyro upon her face doth look, 
Like puzzled urchin on an aged crone, 
Who keepeth clos'd a wondrous riddle-book, 
As spectacled she sits in chimney nook; 
But soon his eyes grow brilliant, when she told 
His lady's purpose ; and he scarce could brook 
Tears, at the thought of those enchantments cold, ( 7 ) 
And Madeline asleep in lap of legends old. 



Sudden a thought came, like a fall-blown rose, 
Flushing his brow, and in his pained heart 
Made purple riot ; then doth he propose 
A stratagem, that makes the beldame start. 
" A cruel man and impious thou art ; 
Sweet lady ! let her pray, and sleep and dream, 
Alone with her good angels far apart 
From wicked men like thee. Go ! go ! I deem 
Thou canst not, surely, be the same that thou dost seem." 

XVII. 

" I will not harm her, by all saints, I swear ! " 
Quoth Porphyro. " Oh, may I ne'er find grace, 
When my weak voice shall whisper its last prayer 
If one of her soft ringlets I displace, 
Or look with ruffian passion in her face ! 
Good Angela, believe me, by these tears, 
Or I will, even in a moment's space, 
Awake with horrid shout my foemen's ears, 
And beard them, though they be more fang'd than wolves and 
bears." 



KEATS. 293 

XVIII. 

" Ah ! why wilt thou affright a feeble soul ? 
A poor, weak, palsy-stricken, churchyard thing, 
Whose passing bell may ere the midnight toll ; 
Whose prayers for thee, each morn and evening, 
Were never miss'd ? " Thus plaining, doth she bring 
A gentler speech from burning Porphyro, 
So woeful and of such deep sorrowing, 
That Angela gives promise she will do 
Whatever he shall wish, betide or weal or woe : 



Which was to lead him in close secrecy 
Even to Madeline's chamber, and there hide 
Him in a closet, of such privacy 
That he might see her beauty unespied, 
And win perhaps that night a peerless bride, 
While legion 'd fairies paced the coverlet, 
And pale enchantment held her sleepy-eyed. 
Never on such a night have lovers met, 
Since Merlin paid his demon all the monstrous debt. ( 8 ) 

xx. 

" It shall be as thou wishest," said the dame ; 
" All cates and dainties shall be stored there, 
Quickly on this feast-night ; by the tambour-frame 
Her own lute thou wilt see : no time to spare, 
For I am slow and feeble, and scarce dare, 
On such a catering, trust my dizzy head. 
Wait here, my child, with patience ; kneel in prayer 
The while ; ah ! thou must needs the lady wed ; 
Or may I never leave my grave among the dead ! " 



So saying, she hobbled off with busy fear ; 
The lover's endless minute slowly pass'd, 
The dame return'd, and wliisper'd in his ear 
To follow her, with aged eyes aghast 



294 KEATS. 

From fright of dim espial. Safe at last, 
Through many a dusky gallery, they gain 
The maiden's chamber, silken, hushd, and chaste, 
Where Porphyro took covert, pleas'd amain : 
His poor guide hurried back with agues in her brain. 



XXII. 

Her faltering hand upon the bulustrade, 
Old Angela was feeling for the stair, 
When Madeline, St. Agnes' charmed maid, 
Rose, like a mission'd spirit, unaware ; 
With silver taper-light, and pious care 
She turn'd, and down the aged gossip led 
To a safe level matting. Now prepare, 
Young Porphyro, for gazing on that bed ; 
She comes, she comes again, like ring-dove fray'd and fled. 



Out went the taper as she hurried in ; 
Its little smoke in pallid moonshine died : ( 9 ) 
She clos'd the door, she panteth all akin 
To spirits of the air and visions wide ; 
Nor utter'd syllable, or " Woe betide ! " 
But to her heart her heart was voluble, 
Paining with eloquence her balmy side : 
As though a tongueless nightingale should swell 
Her throat in vain, and die heart-stifled in her dell. 

XXIV. 

A casement high and triple-arched there was, 
All garlanded with carven images 
Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass, 
And diamonded with panes of quaint device, 
Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes, 
As are the tiger-motJis deep damask 'd wings. 
And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries, 
And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings, 
A shielded scutcheon blush' d with blood of queens and kings. ( 10 ) 



KEATS. 295 



Full on this casement shone the wintry moon, 
And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast, 
As down she knelt for heaven's grace and boon : 
Rose-bloom fell on Tier hands together prest, 
And on her silver cross soft amethyst, 
And on her hair a glory like a saint ; 
She seemed a splendid angel, newly drest, 
Save wings, for heaven : — Porphyro grew faint — ( n ) 
She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint. 

XXVI. 

Anon his heart revives : her vespers done, 
Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees ; 
Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one ; ( 12 ) 
Loosens her fragrant bodice : by degrees 
Her rich attire creeps rustling to her Jcnees : 
Half hidden, like a mermaid in seaweed, 
Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees 
In fancy fair St. Agnes in her bed, 
Eut dares not look behind, or all the charm is fled. 



Soon, trembling in her soft and chilly nest, 
In sort of wakeful swoon, perplex'd she lay, 
Until the poppied warmth of sleep oppressed 
Her smoothed limbs, and soul, fatigued away, 
Flown, like a thought, until the morrow day ; 
Blissfully haven' d both from joy and pain; 
Clasp d like a missal, where sivart Paynims pray ; 
Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain, 
\s though a rose should shut, and be a bud again. ( 13 ) 



Stol'n to this paradise and so entranc'd, 
Porphyro gaz'd upon her empty dress, 
And listen'd to her breathing if it chanc'd 
To wake unto a slumbrous tenderness ; 



296 KEATS. 

Which when he heard, that minute did he bless, 
And breath'd himself; then from the closet crept, 
Noiseless as fear in a wide wilderness, 
And over the hush'd carpet silent stept, 
And 'tween the curtains peep'd, where lo ! how fast she slept. 



Then, by the bedside, where the faded moon 
Made a dim silver twilight, — soft he set 
A table, and, half-anguish'd, threw thereon 
A cloth of woven crimson, gold, and jet : — 
Oh, for some drowsy Morphean amulet ! 
The boist'rous, midnight, festive clarion, 
The kettle-drum and far-heard clarionet, 
Affray his ears, though but in dying tone : — 
The hall-door shuts again, and all the noise is gone. 



And still she slept an azure-lidded 
In blanched linen, smooth and lavender'd, 
While he from forth the closet brought a heap 
Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd, 
With jellies soother than the creamy curd, 
And lucent syrups tinct with cinnamon : ( H ) 
Manna and dates, in argosy transferred 
From Fez ; and spiced dainties every one, 
From silken Samarcand to cedar d Lebanon. 



These delicates he helped with glowing hand 
On golden dishes and in baskets bright 
Of wreathed silver ; sumptuously they stand 
In the retired quiet of the night, 
Filling the chilly room with perfume light. 
" And now, my love, my seraph fair, awake ! 
Thou art my heaven, and I thine eremite. 
Open thine eyes for meek St. Agnes' sake, 
Or I shall drowse beside thee, so my soul doth ache.' 



KEATS. 297 



Thus whispering, his warm, unnerved arm 
Sank in her pillow. Shaded was her dream 
By the dusk curtains ; — 't was a midnight charm 
Impossible to melt as iced stream : 
The lustrous salvers in the moonlight gleam", 
Broad golden fringe upon the carpet lies ; 
It seem'd he never, never could redeem 
From such a stedfast spell his lady's eyes ; 
So mus'd awhile, entail'd in woofed fantasies. 



Awakening up, he took her hollow lute, — 
Tumultuous, — and, in chords that tenderest be, 
He play'd an ancient ditty, long since mute, 
In Provence call'd " La belle dame sans mercy : " 
Close to her ear touching the melody ; — 
Wherewith disturb'd she utter'd a soft moan : 
He ceas'd — she panted quick — and suddenly 
Her blue affrayed eyes wide open shone : 
Upon his knees he sank, pale as smooth sculptured stone. 



Her eyes were open, but she still beheld, 
Now wide awake, the vision of her sleep : 
There was a painful change that nigh expell'd 
The blisses of her dream, so pure and deep, 
At which fair Madeline began to weep, 
And moan forth witless words with many a sigh ; 
While still her gaze on Porphyro would keep ; 
Who knelt, with joined hands and piteous eye, 
Fearing to move or speak, she look'd so drearaingly, 



" Ah, Porphyro ! " said she, " but even now 
Thy voice was a sweet tremble in mine ear, 
Made tunable with every sweetest vow ; 
And those sad ejes were spiritual and clear ; 



298 EEATS. 

How chang'd thou art ! how pallid, chill, and drear !- 
Give me that voice again, my Porphyro, 
Those looks immortal, those complainings dear ; 
Oh ! leave me not in this eternal woe, 
For if thou diest, my love, I know not where to go." 



Beyond a mortal man impassion 'd far ( 15 ) 
At these voluptuous accents he arose, 
Ethereal, flush 'd, and like a throbbing star 
Seen mid the sapphire heavens deep repose ; 
Into her dream he melted, as the rose 
Blendeth its odours with the violet, — 
Solution sweet. Meantime the frost wind blows 
Like love's alarum, pattering the sharp sleet 
Against the window-panes : St. Agnes' moon hath set. 

XXXVII. 

'T is dark ; quick pattereth the flaw-blown sleet : 
" This is no dream ; my bride, my Madeline ! " 
'T is dark : the iced gusts still rave and beat. 
" No dream, alas ! alas ! and woe is mine ; 
Porphyro will leave me here to rave and pine ; 
Cruel ! what traitor could thee hither bring ! 
I curse not, for my heart is lost in thine, 
Though thou forsakest a deceived thing ; — ■ 
A dove, forlorn and lost, with sick unpruned wing." 



" My Madeline ! sweet dreamer ! lovely bride 
Say, may I be for aye thy vassal blest ? 
Thy beauty s shield, heart-shaped, and vermeil- dyed ? ( 16 ) 
Ah ! silver shrine, here will I take my rest, 
After so many hours of toil and quest — 
A famish'd pilgrim, saved by miracle : 
Though I have found, I will not rob thy nest, 
Saving of thy sweet self ; if thou think'st well 
To trust, fair Madeline, to no rude infidel. 



KEATS. 299 



" Hark ! 't is an elfin storm from faery land, 
Of haggard seeming, but a boon indeed. 
Arise, — arise ! — the morning is at hand ; 
The bloated wassailers will never heed ; — 
Let ns away, my love, with happy speed ; 
There are no ears to hear, nor eyes to see, — 
Drown'd all in Rhenish and the sleepy mead : 
Awake ! arise ! my love, and fearless be ; 
For o'er the southern moors I have a home for thee." 



She hurried at his words, beset with fears, 

For there were sleeping dragons all around 

At glaring watch, perhaps with ready spears. 

Down the wide stairs a darkling way they found, — 

In all the house was heard no human sound. 

A chain- dro op' d lamp was flickering by each door ; 

The arras, rife with horseman, hawk and hound, 

Flutter'd in the besieging wind's uproar ; 

And the long carpets rose along the gusty floor. (") 

XLI. 

They glide like phantoms into the wide hall ; 
Like phantoms to the inner porch they glide, 
Where lay the porter, in uneasy sprawl, 
With a huge empty flagon by his side ; 
The watchful blood-hound rose, and shook his hide, 
But his sagacious eye an inmate owns ; 
By one, and one, the bolts full easy slide : 
The chains lie silent on the foot- worn stones ; 
The key turns, and the door upon its hinges groans. 

XLII. 

And they are gone ; ay, ages long ago, 
These lovers fled away into the storm. 
That night the Baron dreamt of many a woe, 
And all his warrior-guests, with shade and form 



300 KEATS. 

Of witch, and demon, and large coffin-worm, 
Were long benightmared. Angela the old 
Died palsy-twitch'd, with meagre face deform : 
The beadsman, after thousand aves told, 
For aye nnsought-for slept among his ashes cold. 



( J ) The Eve of St. Agnes. 
St. Agnes was a Koman virgin, who suffered martyr- 
dom in the reign of Dioclesian. Her parents, a few days 
after her decease, are said to have had a vision of her, 
surrounded by angels and attended by a white lamb, which 
afterwards became sacred to her. In the Catholic Church, 
formerly, the nuns used to bring a couple of lambs to her 
altar during mass. The superstition is (for I believe it is 
still to be found), that, by taking certain measures of 
divination, damsels may get a sight of their future hus- 
bands in a dream. The ordinary process seems to have 
been by fasting. Aubrey (as quoted in Brand's Popular 
Antiquities) mentions another, which is, to take a row of 
pins, and pull them out one by one, saying a Paternoster ; 
after which, upon going to bed, the dream is sure to ensue. 
Brand quotes Ben Jonson :— 

And on sweet St. Agnes' night, 
Pleas'd yon with the promis'd sight, 
Some of husbands, some of lovers, 
Which an empty dream discovers. 

( 2 ) The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold. 
Could he have selected an image more warm and 
comfortable in itself, and, therefore, better contradicted 



KEATS. 301 

by the season ? We feel the plump, feathery bird, in his 
nook, shivering in spite of his natural household warmth, 
and staring out at the strange weather. The hare cringing 
through the chill grass is very piteous, and the " silent 
flock " very patient ; and how quiet and gentle, as well as 
wintry, are all these circumstances, and fit to open a quiet 
and gentle poem ! The breath of the pilgrim, likened 
to "pious incense," completes them, and is a simile in 
admirable "keeping," as the painters call it; that is to 
say, is thoroughly harmonious with itself and all that is 
going on. The breath of the pilgrim is visible, so is that 
of a censer ; the censer, after its fashion, may be said to 
pray ; and its breath, like the pilgrim's, ascends to heaven. 
Young students of poetry may, in this image alone, see 
what imagination is, under one of its most poetical forms, 
and how thoroughly it "tells." There is no part of it 
unfitting. It is not applicable in one point, and the 
reverse in another. 

» 
( 3 ) Past the sweet Virgins picture, &c. 

What a complete feeling of winter-time is in this 
stanza, together with an intimation of those Catholic 
elegances, of which we are to have more in the poem ! 

( 4 ) To think how they may ache, &c. 
The germ of the thought, or something like it, is in 
Dante, where he speaks of the figures that perform the 
part of sustaining columns in architecture. Keats had 
read Dante in Mr. Cary's translation, for which he had 
a great respect. He began to read him afterwards in 



302 KEATS. 

Italian, which language he was mastering with surprising 
quickness. A friend of ours has a copy of Ariosto con- 
taining admiring marks of his pen. But the same thought 
may have struck one poet as well as another. Perhaps 
there are few that have not felt something like it on 
seeing the figures upon tomhs. Here, however, for the 
first time, we believe, in English poetry, it is expressed, 
and with what feeling and elegance ! Most wintry as well 
as penitential is the word "aching" in "icy hoods and 
mails;" and most felicitous the introduction of the 
Catholic idea in the word " purgatorial." The very colour 
of the rails is made to assume a meaning, and to shadow 
forth the gloom of the punishment — 

Imprisoned in black purgatorial rails. 

( s ) Flattered to tears. 
This " flattered " is exquisite. A true poet is by 
nature a metaphysician ; far greater in general than meta- 
physicians professed. He feels instinctively what the 
others get at by long searching. In this word " flattered " 
is the whole theory of the secret of tears ; which are the 
tributes, more or less worthy, of self-pity to self-love. 
Whenever we shed tears, we take pity on ourselves ; and 
we feel, if we do not consciously say so, that we deserve to 
have the pity taken. In many cases, the pity is just, and 
the self-love not to be construed unhandsomely. In many 
others it is the reverse ; and this is the reason why selfish 
people are so often found among the tear-shedders, and 
why they seem never to shed them for others. They 
imagine themselves in the situation of others, as indeed 



KEATS. 



303 



the most generous must, before they can sympathize ; but 
the generous console as well as weep. Selfish tears are 
niggardly of everything but themselves. 

" Flattered to tears." Yes, the poor old man was 
moved, by the sweet music, to think that so sweet a thing 
was intended for his comfort, as well as for others. He 
felt that the mysterious kindness of heaven did not omit 
even his poor, old, sorry case, in its numerous workings 
and visitations ; and, as he wished to live longer, he 
began to think that his wish was to be attended to. He 
began to consider how much he had suffered— how much 
he had suffered wrongly and mysteriously — and how much 
better a man he was, with all his sins, than fate seemed to 
have taken him for. Hence he found himself deserving 
of tears and self-pity, and he shed them, and felt soothed 
by his poor, old, loving self. Not undeservedly either ; 
for he was a painstaking pilgrim, aged, patient, and 
humble, and willingly suffered cold and toil for the sake 
of something better than he could otherwise deserve ; and 
so the pity is not exclusively on his own side : we pity 
him, too, and would fain see him out of that cold chapel, 
gathered into a warmer place than a grave. But it was 
not to be. We must therefore console ourselves in know- 
ing, that this icy endurance of his was the last, and that 
he soon found himself at the sunny gate of heaven. 

( 6 ) A little moonlight room. 

The poet does not make his "little moonlight room " 
comfortable, obseiwe. The high taste of the exordium is 
kept up. All is still wintry. There is to be no comfort 



304 KEATS. 

in the poem, but what is given by love. All else may be 
left to the cold walls. 



( 7 ) Tears, &c. 
He almost shed tears of sympathy, to think how his 
treasure is exposed to the cold ; and of delight and pride, 
to think of her sleeping beauty, and her love for himself. 
This passage, " asleep in lap of legends old," is in the 
highest imaginative taste, fusing together the imaginative 
and the spiritual, the remote and the near. Madeline is 
asleep in her bed ; but she is also asleep in accordance 
with the legends of the season ; and therefore the bed 
becomes their lap as well as sleep's. The poet does 
not critically think of all this ; he feels it : and thus 
should other young poets draw upon the prominent points 
of their feelings on a subject, sucking the essence out 
of them into analogous words, instead of beating about 
the bush for thoughts, and, perhaps, getting clever ones, 
but not thoroughly pertinent, not wanted, not the best. 
Such, at least, is the difference between the truest poetry 
and the degrees beneath it. 

( 8 ) Since Merlin paid Ms demon all the monstrous debt. 
What he means by Merlin's " monstrous debt," I 
cannot say. Merlin, the famous enchanter, obtained King 
Arthur his interview with the fair Iogerne ; but though 
the son of a devil, and conversant with the race, I am 
aware of no debt that he owed them. Did Keats suppose 
that he had sold himself, like " Faustus ?" 



KEATS. 305 

( 9 ) Its little smoke in pallid moonshine died. 
This is a verse in the taste of Chaucer, full of minute 
grace and truth. The smoke of the wax-taper seems 
almost as ethereal and fair as the moonlight, and both 
suit each other and the heroine. But what a lovely line 
is the seventh about the heart, 

Paining with eloquence her balmy side ! 

And the nightingale ! how touching the simile ! the heart 
a " tongueless nightingale," dying in the bed of the 
bosom. What thorough sweetness, and perfection of 
lovely imagery ! How one delicacy is heaped upon 
another ! But for a burst of richness, noiseless, coloured, 
suddenly enriching the moonlight, as if a door of heaven 
were opened, read the stanza that follows. 

( 10 ) A shielded scutcheon blush'd with blood of queens and kings. 
Could all the pomp and graces of aristocracy, with 
Titian's and Raphael's aid td boot, go beyond the rich 
religion of this picture, with its " twilight saints " and its 
scutcheons " blushing with the blood of queens ? " 

( n ) Save wings for heaven. 
The lovely and innocent creature, thus praying under 
the gorgeous painted window, completes the exceeding and 
unique beauty of this picture, — one that will for ever stand 
by itself in poetry, as an addition to the stock. It would 
have struck a glow on the face of Shakspeare himself. 
He might have put Imogen or Ophelia under such a 
shrine. How proper as well as pretty the heraldic term 

20 



306 KEATS. 

gules, consideriog the occasion. " Eed " would not have 
heen a fiftieth part as good. And with what elegant 
luxury he touches the "silver cross" with "amethyst," 
and the fair human hand with " rose-colour," the kin of 
their carnation! The lover's growing "faint" is one 
of the few inequalities which are to be found in the latter 
productions of this great hut young and over-sensitive 
poet. He had, at the time of his writing this poem, the 
seeds of a mortal illness in him, and he, doubtless, wrote 
as he had felt, for he was also deeply in love ; and 
extreme sensibility struggled in him with a great under- 
standing. 

( 12 ) Unclasps her warmed jewels. 

How true and cordial the warmed jewels, and what 
matter of fact also, made elegant, in the rustling down- 
ward of the attire ; and the mixture of dress and undress, 
and of the dishevelled hair, likened to a " mermaid in 
seaweed ! " But the next stanza is perhaps the most 
exquisite in the poem. 

[ ( 13 ) As though a rose should shut. 
Can the beautiful go beyond this ! I never saw it. 
And how the imagery rises ! flown like a thought — bliss- 
fully haven' d — clasp'd like a missal in a land of Pagans : 
that is to say, where Christian prayer-books must not be 
seen, and are, therefore, doubly cherished for the danger. 
And then, although nothing can surpass the preciousness 
of this idea, is the idea of the beautiful, crowning all — 

Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain, 
As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again. 



KEATS. S07 

Thus it is that poetry, in its intense sympathy with 
creation, may be said to create anew, rendering its words 
more impressive than the objects they speak of, and indi- 
vidually more lasting; the spiritual perpetuity putting 
them on a level (not to speak it profanely) with the 
fugitive compound. 

( 14 ) Lucent syrups tinct with cinnamon. 

Here is delicate modulation, and super-refined epicurean 

nicety ! 

Lucent syrups tinct with cinnamon, 

make us read the line delicately, and at the tip-end, as it 
were, of one's tongue. 

( ,5 j Beyond a mortal man. 

Madeline is half awake, and Porphyro reassures her 
with loving, kind looks, and an affectionate embrace. 

( ,6 ) Heart-shap 'd»and vermeil dyed. 

With what a pretty wilful conceit the costume of the 
poem is kept up in this line about the shield ! The poet 
knew when to introduce apparent trifles forbidden to those 
who are void of real passion, and who, feeling nothing 
intensely, can intensify nothing. 

( 17 ) Carpets rose. 

This is a slip of the memory, for there were hardly 
carpets in those days. But the truth of the painting 
makes amends, as in the unchronological pictures of old 
masters. 



308 KEATS. 



LONELY SOUNDS. 

Undescribed sounds, 
That come a-swooning over hollow grounds, 
And wither drearily on barren moors. 



ORION. 

At this, with madden'd stare, 
And lifted hands, and trembling lips he stood 
Like old Deucalion mountain'd o'er the flood, 
Or blind Orion hungry for the morn. 



CIRCE AND HER VICTIMS. 

Fierce, wan, 
And tyrannizing was the lady's look, 
As over them a gnarled staff she shook. 
Ofttimes upon the sudden she laugh'd out, 
And from a basket emptied to the rout 
Clusters of grapes, the which they raven'd quick 
And roar'd for more, with many a hungry lick 
About their shaggy jaws. Avenging, slow, 
Anon she took a branch of mistletoe, 
And emptied on 't a black dull gurgling phial : 
Groan'd one and all, as if some piercing trial 
Were sharpening for their pitiable bones. 
She lifted up the charm : appealing groans 
From their poor breasts went suing to her ear 
In vain : remorseless as an infant's bier t 



KEATS. 309 

She whisk' d against their eyes the sooty oil ; 
"Whereat was heard a noise of painful toil, 
Increasing gradual to a tempest rage, 
Shrieks, yells, and groans, of torture-pilgrimage. 



A BETTER ENCHANTRESS IMPRISONED IN THE SHAPE 
OF A SERPENT. 

She was a gordian shape of dazzling hue, 

Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue, 

Striped like a zebra, speckled like a pard, 

Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson-barr'd, 

And full of silver moons, that as she breath' d 

Dissolvd or brighter shone, or interwreath'd 

Their lustres with the gloomier tapestries. 

So rainbow-sided, full of miseries, 

She seem'd, at once, some penanc'd lady elf, 

Some demon's mistress, or the demon's self. 

Upon her crest she wore a wannish fire 

Sprinkled with stars, like Ariadne's tiar ; 

Her head was serpent; but, ah bitter siveet! 

She had a woman s mouth, with all its pearls complete. 



SATURN DETHRONED. 

Beep in the shady sadness of a vale, 

Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, 

Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star, 

Sat grey-hair d Saturn, quiet as a stone, 

Still as the silence round about his lair ; 

Forest on forest hung about his head, 

Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there, 

Not so much life as on a summer's day 



310 KEATS. 

Robs not one light seed from the feather'd grass, 
But where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest. 
A stream went voiceless by, still deaden'd more 
By reason of his fallen divinity 
Spreading a shade : the Naiad mid her reeds 
Press'd her cold finger closer to her lips. 
Along the margin sand large footmarks went, 
No further than to where his feet had stray'd, 
And slept there since. Upon the sodden ground 
His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead, 
Unsceptred ; and his realmless eyes were closed. 



THE VOICE OF A MELANCHOLY GODDESS SPEAKING 
TO SATURN. 

As when upon a tranced summer-night 
Those green-robed senators of mighty woods, 
Tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest stars, 
Dream, and so dream all night without a stir, 
Save from one gradual solitary gust, 
Which comes upon the silence, and dies off, 
As if the ebbing air had but one wave : 
So came these words, and went. 



A FALLEN GOD. 

— the bright Titan, frenzied with new woes, 
Unus'd to bend, by hard compulsion, bent 
His spirit to the sorrow of the time ; 
And all along a dismal rack of clouds, 
Upon the boundaries of day and night, 
He stretch'd himself, in grief and radiance faint. 



KEATS. 311 



OTHER TITANS FALLEN. 

Scarce images of life, one here, one there, 
Lay vast and edgeways ; like a dismal cirque 
Of Druid stones, upon a forlorn moor, 
When the chill rain begins at shut of eve 
In dull November, and their chancel vault, 
The heaven itself, is blinded throughout night. 



ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE. ( Ie ) 

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains 
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, 
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains 

One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk. 
'T is not through envy of thy happy lot, 
But being too happy in thy happiness, — 
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, 
In some melodious plot 
Of beeches green, and shadows numberless, 
Singest of summer in full-throated ease. 

Oh, for a draught of vintage, that hath been 
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth, 
Tasting of Flora and the country-green, 

Dance, and Provencal song, and sun-burnt mirth ! 
Oh, for a beaker full of the warm South, 
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, 
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, 
And purple-stained mouth ; 
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, 
And with thee fade away into the forest dim : 

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget 
What thou among the leaves hast never known, 

The weariness, the fever, and the fret 
Here, where men sit, and hear each other groan ; 



312 KEATS. 

Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs ; 

Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies ; 
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow 
And leaden- eyed despairs ; 
Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, 
Or new love pine at them beyond to-morrow 

Away ! away ! for I will fly to thee, 

Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, 
But on the viewless wings of Poesy, 

Though the dull brain perplexes and retards ; 
Already with thee ! tender is the night, 

And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, 
Cluster' d around by all her starry Fays ; 
But here there is no light, 
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown 
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. 

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, 

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the loughs, 
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet 

Wherewith the seasonable month endows 
TJie grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild ; 
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine ; 
Fast-fading violets, cover'd up in leaves ; 
And mid-May's eldest child, 
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, 

The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. 

Darkling I listen ; and, for many a time, 

I have been half in love with easeful Death, 
CalVd him soft names in many a mused rhyme 

To take into the air my quiet breath ; 
Now more than ever seems it rich to die, 
To cease upon the midnight with no pain, 
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad 
In such an ecstasy ! 
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain — 
To thy high requiem become a sod. 



KEATS. 313 

Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird! 

No hungry generations tread thee down ; 
The voice I hear this passing night was heard 

In ancient days by emperor and clown ; 
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path 

Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, 
She stood in tears amid the alien corn ; 
The same that ofttimes hath 
Charm d magic casements, opening on the foam 
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. ( 19 ) 

Forlorn ! the very word is like a bell 

To toll me bach from thee to my sole self 
Adieu ! the fancy cannot cheat so well 
As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf. 
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades 
Past the near meadows, over the still stream, 
Up the hill side : and now 't is buried deep 
In the next valley -glades ! 
Was it a vision, or a waking- dream ? 

Fled is that music ? Do I wake or sleep ? 



( 18 ) Ode to a Nightingale. 
This poem was written in a house at the foot of High- 
gate Hill, on the border of the fields looking towards 
Hampstead. The poet had then his mortal illness upon 
him, and knew it. Never was the voice of death sweeter. 

( 19 ) Oharm'd magic casements, &c. 

This beats Claude's Enchanted Castle, and the story of 

King Beder in the Arabian Nights. You do not know 

what the house is, or where, nor who the bird. Perhaps 

a king himself. But you see the window open on the 



314 KEATS. 

perilous sea, and hear the voice from out the trees in which 
it is nested, sending its warble over the foam. The whole 
is at once vague and particular, full of mysterious life. 
You see nobody, though something is heard ; and you 
know not what of beauty or wickedness is to come over that 
sea. Perhaps it was suggested by some fairy tale. I 
remember nothing of it in the dream-like wildness of 
things in Palmerin of England, a book which is full of 
colour and home landscapes, ending with a noble and 
affecting scene of war ; and of which Keats was very fond. 



ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER. 

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold, 

And many goodly states and kingdoms seen ; 

Round many western islands have I been, 
• Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold : 
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told, 

That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne ; 

Yet did I never breathe its pure serene, 
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold : 
Then felt I like some waterier of the sMes, 

When a new planet swims into his ken ; 
Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes 

He siar'd at- the- Pacific ( 20 ) — and all his men 
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise — 

Silent, upon a peak in JDarien. ( 2l ) 



( 20 ) He' siar'd at the Pacific, &c. 
" Stared " has been thought by some too violent, but 
it is precisely the word required by the occasion. The 



KEATS. 



315 



Spaniard was too original and ardent a man either to look, 
or to affect to look, coldly superior to it. His " eagle 
eyes " are from life, as may be seen by Titian's portrait of 
him. 

The public are indebted to Mr. Charles Knight for a 
cheap reprint of the Homer of Chapman. 

( 21 ) Silent, upon apeak in Darien. 

A most fit line to conclude our volume. We leave the 
reader standing upon it, with all the illimitable world of 
thought and feeling before him, to which his imagination 
will have been brought, while journeying through these 
" realms of gold." 



THE* END. 




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